Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay
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I have a confession, I have a sick obsession with the Holocaust. I wasn’t alive, my parents weren’t even alive, but we are part German, even if my great great grandparents had already emigrated out of Germany, I still feel responsible. I wonder what I and my family would have done as we watched our neighbors and friends being taken from their homes. Would we have stopped them? Hid them? Risked our lives? By high school I had already read Night by Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi’s If This Is A Man, Diary of Anne Frank, and numerous other books that were available. Our final project in English my senior year was to read a book on a historical figure, and I chose Hitler. Instead of the thin books available in the school library, my teacher forced me to head to the large library in a nearby town and grab The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. There is still so much to learn and remember, so I picked up Sarah’s Key
Sarah’s Key intertwines the stories of Sarah, a 10 year old Jewish girl taken from her home by the French police in the raid of Velodrome d’Hiver, and Julia, an American journalist living in France 60 years later tasked with writing a story on the 60th Anniversary of Vel d’Hiv, something the French would rather forget about. Julia meets resistance from her French husband Bertrand, even as it becomes clear Sarah and his family have a connection.
The character development is fierce in Sarah’s Key, from the concierge that gloats as Sarah and her family are removed, to the policeman that warns with a cold smile that they wouldn’t open their window while they packed as they didn’t want a repeat of a mother throwing her child from the window and following after to avoid where they were going, to the farmer that rescues Sarah and Bertrand’s family as they try to repair the guilt they feel for being involved. You can feel the hurt, agony, and sinister feelings, but most of all, the fear.
As Julia researches the Vel d’Hiv she learns that the apartment she and her family are currently remodeling, an apartment that Bertrand’s family has lived in since the 1940’s, once belonged to a Jewish family that was removed during the roundup of 1942. From that point on Sarah’s Key becomes a quest to find a long lost girl and her family through France, Italy, and finally America.
Alongside the search for Sarah, Julia has to deal with personal demons and make decisions about her marriage and a surprise pregnancy. Written from Julia’s perspective you get to see how Americans are treated in France and how the French view relationships. Some of the dialogue and circumstances are stereotypical, but you can see them playing out without being forced by the author. While the characters are fictitious, the historical events are real, and a great reading to remind us of just what the human mind can create, both the evil and the greatness. And as always, any book that makes me want to research a time or place more, always has a place in my bedroom.
Novel Whore Rating: 5 Notches on the Bed Post
Wine Pairing: Delas St. Esprit Côtes-du-Rhône Rouge 2007
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