Sarah's Key

Finished May 13
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

This read was for my upcoming book club meeting. It is a WWII story of a young girl, ten years old, who is awakened early one July morning in 1942 by pounding on her apartment door. She wakes her mother, and tells her. They family isn't that worried as Sarah's father has been sleeping in the cellar after rumours of police seizing men have become widespread. This morning, however the police order Sarah's mother to pack a bag and also tell Sarah they will be taking her. When Sarah enters her bedroom to get clothes, and wake her younger brother, only 4, he refuses to go.
The children had a deep cupboard they often played in and hid from their parents in fun. He goes in there and Sarah locks him in, promising to come back later.
As the police shepherd the two from the building, Sarah's mother screams for her father, and he joins them. They are part of a roundup of Jews in Paris, in which busloads are taken to the Vel' d'Hiv'.
Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American woman reporter, who has lived in Paris for twenty-five years, and married a Parisian, is assigned to do a story on the sixtieth anniversary of this horrible event. Julie hadn't heard of it before, and as she does research, she is horrified.
When she discovers that her husband's family has a connection to the event, she is determined to find out about the family that used to live in the apartment her husband's grandparents lived in.
As we follow Sarah's story in 1942, we also follow Julia's investigation into the past.
This is a novel of a fictional family, set around a true event, and a terribly sad one. This particular raid was enacted by Frenchmen on Nazi orders, men who did not protest acting against their fellow citizens. This is a novel that was written to help enlighten the people of today about their past, and look toward a future of truth and acknowledgement.