For our book club we just finished reading Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay. The book is about an American born woman living in France as a journalist. She has a daughter, French husband and adores her Parisian lifestyle...until she's asked to write about France's blemish the Vél' d'Hiv'...the 1942 deportation of French citizens by French police to German concentration camps. Soon Julia finds that her husband's family and her soon to be new apartment may have played roles in horrible crimes against the Jews.
Amidst Julia's story we also hear from Sarah - a young Jewish girl whose family is round up one morning in July by French police. Afraid, Sarah has her young brother Michel hide in the secret bedroom cabinet until the family is able to return for him later. Sarah along with other families are sent to nearby holding centers around Paris before being shipped to Poland for extermination.
The book is a fast and easy read. Not only do you want to know what happens to Sarah but you become immersed in Julia's personal battles. The story is incredibly sad; though Sarah's Key is fiction, the Vél' d'Hiv' was a real event where thousands of Jewish people were handed over to the Germans by their fellow countrymen. What makes the Vél' d'Hiv so sad - is that the majority of those arrested were women and children.
I read the book, I enjoyed the story...even though it was terribly heartbreaking.
No comments:
Post a Comment