Had Sabina Wolanski’s diaries been found while she hid from Nazi soldiers, she would have been murdered: the writings would have revealed her Jewish identity.

“I don’t know how these survived” she says as she turns the pages, “I’ve had these since 1939.”

Sabina's new autobiography, Destined to Live, is based on these diaries, and the memories of the Holocaust recorded in them.

It is clear upon meeting Sabina Van Der Linden, as she is now known these days, that she is not just a survivor.

She is a stylish, sophisticated businesswoman who has triumphed over adversity while maintaining an unsurpassable sense of style.

Her stunning Eastern Suburbs home is modern, spacious yet warm, and flooded with natural light: much like her personality.

“As I spent part of my life underground I have this feeling that I have to have a lot of light,” Sabina tells me. “I don’t like small crowded environments, small crowded rooms like office spaces: I am an interior designer you know!”

As she tells me this, she presses a button that automatically pulls back the shutters on the sky light above, allowing more light over the desk where we begin our conversation.

She distinctly recalls her strong first impressions of Australia and Bondi when she immigrated to Australia in the 1950s.

“I felt very safe in Australia. I feel very safe in Australia,” she says.

But being in Australia didn’t immediately help alleviate the fear after losing her family to the Nazi regime and instead raised the questions found in her book: how can a God exist, and why did I survive when so many did not?

“The way the children were murdered, the brutality. I thought, “If there was a God then why does he allow these things to happen?”

I ask her if the book helped her answer any of her questions: "No", she replies but continues "I no longer seek answers." Her fear did begin to subside gradually, however, as she settled into family life and established Australia as her home.

She still believes that it was not her, but others who kept her alive during the years of the Nazi regime.

“It was something beyond me. It was not my own decisions or my own doing” she modestly claims.

“Somehow there was always somebody helping me.”

There are several moments in Sabina’s book where it is almost inevitable that she will be killed but she somehow survives.

Though it is clear she received help from people, a place to hide, some food or protection, it is hard to accept upon meeting her that it was simply others that kept her alive.

She attributes her inner strength to her mother who guided her firmly; setting a young Sabina's early moral compass. “An extraordinary woman” she reflects.“My mother always told me “you want to go and do something? Go and do it!”

“As little as I was, because I lost my mother when I was 14, it stayed with me forever.”

According to Sabina, it is her children and grandchildren that have provided inspiration for writing Destined to Live along with the delivery of her speech in Berlin in 2005: she was chosen to speak at the opening of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

“I felt that I should leave something behind. After I came back from Berlin, from the speech I delivered, I was back to questioning: “how come I was chosen to do that?”

“There must be something more to it than pure accident. It probably was accidental, but I felt that I had something to say, and I wanted to say it.”

Sabina says that publishing her book and speaking to groups over the last few years regarding her experience have helped ease the pain of the Holocaust and the loss of her family.

Today she talks to students, whom she refers to as “the future”, about prejudice and discrimination. She says she hopes to always teach them “Not to hate. Not to discriminate. And to believe that we are all made exactly same: no race, no colour, no religion. We are just basically people.”

She continues saying people should not be bystanders because: “if one is a bystander then one in a way condones what is going on there.”

Sabina tells me she hasn't included everything in Destined to Live; some things are too painful or too personal.

Meeting her face to face reveals an extraordinary woman who has led a life less ordinary.

“On the whole, I think it’s been good life” she says.

“And now, in what I call the winter of my life, to be able to do this is very satisfying.”

As part of her time with this year’s Sydney Writer’s Fest, Ms Wolanski will be appearing at the following events: ‘Courage’ and ‘Triumph over Adversity’ on May 22^nd and May 24^th respectively. Further details can be found at the Festival website at www.swf.org.au

Her memoir, ‘Destined to Live: One Woman’s War, Life, Loves Remembered ’, is now available in bookstores nationally.