Sarah's Key
A beautiful, haunting read touching on guilt, secrets and the damage we do to each other.
Article: Claire Montague-Fryer
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
In Paris, July 1942, a little known event took place, which was to have far-reaching consequences across history. I personally love history and thought I had a solid working knowledge of Europe at that turbulent time, but I had never heard of this specific event, and the horror of it remains with me.
On finishing this book I promptly looked it up on Wikipedia, and was again saddened by the hate we manage to feel for each other.
Ten-year-old Sarah, a French born Jew, is living with her family in an apartment in Paris. Her family is rounded up by Vichy French police (overseen by a Gestapo officer) and taken to a large sports auditorium in Paris. Sarah, however, manages to hide her 4-year-old brother in a secret cupboard in the apartment before they leave. But she has to lock him in.
After 4 days of appalling neglect (thousands of people in a confined space, no ventilation, no sanitation, no food, the sun baking hot through a glass roof), Sarah watches in horror as people commit suicide. Believing she will be able to go back home to free her brother, she is instead put on a cattle tuck, eventually bound for Auschwitz. Sarah survives, but the fate of her brother haunts her, and the guilt eats her up.
Moving into modern times, journalist, Julia Jarman is about to move into Sarah's old apartment in Paris, and becomes obsessed with Sarah's story. Still a great embarrassment to France, even today, what struck me was, how many other similar events occurred, now forgotten? An unforgettable story.
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- Women24