No one wants to be reminded of that, nobody wants to think about that.” The book demonstrates that such amnesia can be deadly.įor a long time naïve people believed that the world moves in the direction of higher level of humanization. One character of the book says: “Bringing back the past is never a good idea, especially whatever happened during the war. In her novel, the author writes with anxiety and great concern that people want to forget about the Holocaust.
They are already well known, but the book gave birth to some of my thoughts. The author reminds us of those tragic facts. France wanted to forget about its anti-human past and thoroughly concealed it. The second parallel story is about an American journalist, Julia Jermond, who, writing an article about Vel’ d’Hiv’s roundup, found out many horrible details of this crime committed by French police. Almost all of them perished in concentration camps. In 1942, on the orders of German military authorities, French police brutally arrested all Jewish families in Paris. One story is about the tragedy of a Jewish girl named Sarah. However, from my standpoint, despite the fair critical comments (I don’t think it is necessary to list them), the novel deserves a rather high rating, and I will try to explain why.
It is necessary to admit that their opinions weren’t unfounded and most critical comments were fair. Most of them rated the book in four or five stars, but some of them calling the novel “mediocre” showed a lower rating – three stars. As she probes into Sarah's past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.Īlmost a hundred readers published their reviews on Tatiana de Rosnay’s novel Sarah’s Key.
Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl's ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d'Hiv', to the camps, and beyond. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. 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. 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. Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.
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