Books & Java

Sarah's Key

by Tatiana de Rosnay

Synopsis:

 
Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, is brutally arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup, but not before she locks her younger brother in a cupboard in the family's apartment, thinking that she will be back within a few hours.

Paris, May 2002: On Vel' d'Hiv's 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in France's past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

My Review:

A horrible chapter in France's history during the second World War. The round-up of Jews (some even French born) in a neighborhood of Paris by their very own French police (under the influence of the German Nazi regime) and then sent to Poland to their deaths. One girl, Sarah, is brave and manages to escape. She had helped her little brother hide in the cupboard in their apartment in Paris when the round up began, both unknowing of what was going on and thinking she would come right back to get him. Her escape from the camp is prompted when she realizes that her little brother will die if she doesn't go back. She holds the key that unlocks the cupboard. She manages to make it to Paris to find that her brother is dead. In 2002, an American journalist living in France works diligently on a story about the round-up when she realizes that Sarah's story takes place in the very apartment her husband's family has occupied since the very round-up that turned Sarah's life upside down. In her research she finds many facts that bind her to Sarah and her fateful story. The book is sad but there is hope in the journalist's findings. And, these findings which changed Sarah's life so many years ago also change hers.

I loved this book. Another example of fabulous historical fiction.