Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
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Book Reviews of Sarah's Key
Book Review: A great Holocaust story
Summary: 5 Stars
I'll admit it: this week I fell prey to the "Recommended" table at my local book store. Being a bookseller, I find myself to be a bit of a book snob and will rarely listen to advice about my reading material. However, I am also a sucker for a nice cover (yeah, I judge a book by its cover) and "Sarah's Key" indeed has a nice cover. So I picked it up, read a few pages and before I could resist, I was hooked.
"Sarah's Key" is a historical fiction novel that flip flops between two story lines: Sarah's and Julia's. Julia Jarmond is living in modern-day Paris. She is married to a man that she describes as a typical Parisian: good-looking, successful, but also very reserved and often, cold. They live with their daughter, Zoe, and also many secrets.
Then there is Sarah, a 10-year-old French Jew who is taken from her home and sent to a concentration camp during the 1942 Velodrome D'Hiver roundup in Paris. For those of you who have no idea what the Vel D'Hiv roundup is (don't be embarassed - I didn't either!), here is a crash course: Basically 13, 000 Jewish men, women and children were arrested and taken to the Veldrome D'Hiver (a stadium), right in the middle of Paris, where they were left for several days before going to the Drancy and Beaune-la-Rolande internment camps and finally Auschwitz. Now, even if none of the other words in that sentence meant anything to you, I know you recognized Auschwitz. And so you know the fate of these poor, innocent people. Sarah is taken, along with her mother and father.
Julia also happens to be a reporter for a French tourist magazine and is assigned to cover the 60th anniversary of the Vel D'Hiv tragedy. As she begins to dig into the terrible stain on French history, she stumbles upon a 60-year-old mystery that her husband's family is working very hard to keep hidden. And once she stumbles upon it, she knows she has to get to the bottom of it, all while trying to save her crumbling marriage.
I like historical fiction. I started out as a history major in university and cried when I landed in Europe for the first time because of all the historical landmarks I was going to visit. So naturally, this is my kind of story. I had never heard of the Vel D'Hiv roundup, even though I consider myself to be someone who is very concerned about and affected by the Holocaust (I had a near breakdown in the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam) and I almost feel guilty about my ignorance now. However, I am happy that "Sarah's Key" enlightened me and entertained me at the same time.
Both story lines are wonderful and like I said, simply hook you. I demolished this book in approximately 4 hours and haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. People of all ages are able to connect with the characters and story, since at one point or another de Rosnay seems to elaborate and muse about every age. Because the story is based on a true event, it affected me even more. I often stopped and thought that the story I was reading could be a real-life account, sometimes having to remind myself that, "It's not real, Alex". That is how deep this one hits.
I recommend "Sarah's Key" to everyone. Not only because it tells a great story and entertains, but because we owe it to the victims of the Holocaust to keep their memories alive and relevant. The only way to keep history from repeating itself is to learn from our past, our mistakes, and "Sarah's Key" helps us to remember and be thankful.
Book Review: Book Review: Sarah's Key
Summary: 5 Stars
The SUMMARY
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. 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. (Section is from the website of St. Martin's Griffin)
The REVIEW
The March selection for my new book club is Sarah's Key. I have been seeing that there is noon-time discussion amidst our blogging community regarding this book. So, I picked it up early and started my fascinating read.
The summarization of the book's storyline, above, is the best condensed version about this very intricate and complex read. I was completely spellbound by this book and had difficulty putting it down. As a matter of fact, having insomnia doesn't seem to be bothersome when you have this book to read. It's engaging, horrifying, scary, wonderful, and redeeming simultaneously. I found myself holding my breath as I read the chapters as told by Sarah, Hel' d'Hiv's innocent little victim. I prayed, despite the realistic odds, for her brother Michael. I loathed Julia's husband, Bertrand, for being the horrifically pompous, cheating, and egotistical misogynist that he was. I fell in love with Mame and Eduardo. I prayed for William and praised Zoe. I fell inside of Julia's mind and heart. All of these feelings wrapped up into one little book. The book was, to me, completely unforgettable.
What I discovered on Tatiana's website:
"Sarah's Key is her first novel written in her mother tongue, English. Sarah's Key is to be published in 28 countries and has sold over 700 000 copies worldwide. Film rights have also been sold."
Yes, the book is that great!
Albeit this book is sad, however discovering the emotional side of human atrocities most always is. I won't walk you through this intricately impeccable read because this is one that you should discover on your own. It's a personal road to travel, one which I am glad that I did. I read this book with little forehand knowledge of it and that made this book such a rich read for me. I wish the same for you.
On Sher's "Out of Ten Scale:"
This book tugged at my heart like very few do. I was completely committed to Julia and Sarah and grew to love them both, for many reasons. As such, all I can say is that this superb read gains from me, under the genre Fiction:Historical, a 10 out of 10! I absolutely cannot wait for our book club discussion on it.
Book Review: An Amazing Story
Summary: 5 Stars
First off, I never knew that about the French, that there were Jews deported off to Auschwitz. I never knew that about the French policemen separating the mothers from their children or the passive onlookers who just watched their fellow human beings being marched off to their deaths. This story amazed me as the author combined two stories into one ... tying the threads of what happened on July 16, 1942 and a present-day American journalist, who had to face difficult decisions of her own.
This novel is based on the events that happened one hot summer day. Policemen were searching houses in the middle of the night, yanking innocent men and women and children out of bed and sending them off to a fate that no one dared to believe in. Sarah was a young girl who locked her brother into their closet so he would be safe. This is Sarah's story of how she went on that horrible march in town to the trains to be carried to the concentration camps just outside of Paris. This is Sarah's story of how she watched women and children and men face the most humilating circumstances alive, being treated worse than animals at Vel' d'Hiv', what used to be the stadium in Paris until it was torn down in 1958. Then they were sent off to a concentration camp where soon, the mothers were wrenched away from their children's arms (that part was probably the most realistically described part of the story ... still gives me the shivers!) and the mothers were sent to Auschwitz. This is about Sarah's escape from the prison camp to return home to save her little brother.
Not only is it Sarah's story, it is Julia's story. Julia is a transplanted American who married a Frenchman, and Julia is a journalist. Julia's husband's grandmother was sent to a nursing home and in the course of her research on the La Grande Rafle (the round-up of the Jews), Julia found out that her new apartment, that was Mame's, was also Sarah's home. Obessed with finding Sarah, Julia had to come to terms with her own life, marriage and beliefs.
The author traveled back and forth from Sarah's story to Julia's story ... and made it a mystery that is also full of historical facts. This novel kept me turning the page after page while holding my breath. It felt more like a memoir than a novel, with two different voices chiming in on their thoughts and concerns and fears. Yes, there were tears shed on my part. I couldn't help it as De Rosnay is an excellent writer with great visual cues in describing some of the most horrorific scenes to happen in humankind. I was slightly disappointed with the section of 2002 to 2005 as it seems to be a little bit off especially after such an intense first three quarters of the book. And this book is intense. Everything about this book is intense. I would not recommend reading this book before bed as it might be nerve-wracking with all of its descriptions of the concentration camps and the grief that is evident throughout the entire book.
If you like historical fiction, then you will like this book. This is one that I will definitely recommend to my book club and to other avid readers. It is just that intense, thought-provoking and like Sarah said in a letter, "Never forget."
8/21/09
Book Review: Profoundly Shocking Story of a Young French Girl in the Holocaust
Summary: 5 Stars
Tatiana deRosnay has given us one of the most beautifully constructed and heartfelt books I've ever had the pleasure (and pain) of reading. Told in alternating chapters by Sarah in 1942 and Julia in 2002, this remarkable story is based on facts surrounding the role of France and its citizens during the Holocaust. The country's unspeakable part in this tragedy is not a focal point for students, but this book should certainly be told and studied so that the horrible story of the Vel d'Hiv, the roundup of French citizens who were Jews, never has a chance to repeat itself.
Sarah is ten years old when she hears the French police pounding on the door of her parents' Paris apartment. She knew that her parents had been worried and that Papa had taken to sleeping in the basement, but nothing prepared her for the atrocities she was about to endure. Always very protective of her four-year old brother, Michel, she starts to get him ready to go with the police as ordered, but he is terrified and wants to hide in their secret place. Sarah agrees and locks him in the hidden cupboard, knowing he will be safe until she gets back to let him out. She hides the key and goes with her parents.
The reader can feel the sense of confusion and disbelief that overwhelms Sarah as she and her parents are transported to Drancy, a stopping point on the way to Auschwitz. The author writes with deep sympathy of the indignities inflicted on Sarah and the haunting parting as she is torn from her mother. Her one obsession is to get back to her apartment and let her brother out of the cupboard.
In alternating chapters, we are privy to the story of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist now living in France and married to a man whose family is inextricably connected to the torture that Sarah endures. Not in the way the reader might expect, but in a way that will finally explode after years of secrecy and leave the reader choked with grief as the words rip off the pages.
The reader also gets to know Julia and her arrogant husband. Her story revolves around her own disintegrating marriage being strangled by infidelity, her husband's insistence on her having an abortion, and, most importantly, her obsession with the story of the Vel d'Hiv and her tenacity in learning the rest of Sarah's story.
Haunting and unforgettable, this is an intimate and totally captivating story of one of the darkest periods in French history, actually in World History. DeRosnay has put a very personal face on an appalling tragedy, and the result is stunning.
Book Review: Zakhor. Al Tichkah. (Remember. Never forget.)
Summary: 5 Stars
"On July 16 and 17, 1942, 13,152 Jews were arrested in Paris and the suburbs, deported and assassinated at Auschwitz." Those Jews were drug from their homes in France by FRENCH police following orders given by the Nazis. On the day that she was rounded up by French police, 10 year old Sarah Starzynski had locked her little 4 year old brother Michel in a cabinet telling him that she would be back to let him out when the police let them come back home. The families of men, women and children (most between the ages of 2-12 and most BORN in France) were not allowed to return to their homes; instead they were taken to the Voledrome d'Hiver and sequestered there in abominable conditions. They were separated by sex, husbands taken from wives and even worse -- mothers were torn from their children. These confused, hungry and mistreated citizens were loaded on cattle trains and taken in convoys to the camps.
This fictionalized account of the roundup and of the relationship of two families connected through an apartment on Rue de Saintonge in Paris is haunting and memorable.
The novel shifts from past to present with chapter changes, moving between scenes of Sarah as she is imprisoned in Vel D'hiv to American born, now French citizen and journalist, Julia Jarmond Tezac who is assigned the story when that tragedy is to be memorialized on the 60th commemoration of the Vel' d'Hiv'. Julia soon discovers that the French are largely ignorant of this deplorable event and their embarrassment at knowing that this was done keeps them from remembering those lost families - and in fact, many French families simply took over the homes and possessions of the former Jewish occupants. Sarah's story affects Julia in ways she never imagined and completely alters her views of herself and her life. Julia becomes consumed with knowing what happened to Sarah and her family and begins a mission of discovery.
What she learns provides a lesson and an admonishment for us all: Zakhor. Al Tichkah. (Remember. Never forget.)
Highly recommended - read with Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum and Skeletons at the Feast: A Novel by Chris Bohjalian -- two other incredible novels that provide additional insight into how the horror of the Holocaust affected all of Europe in those very dark days of World War II.