In Paris on July 16, 1942 there was a huge roundup and eventual deportation of thousands of Jewish families. Because many of the men were in hiding at the time, most of those arrested were women and children. The call was for all children under the age of 16 and their parents. These families were held for a time at the Vélodrome d'Hiver (Or Vel d'Hiv as it was called - a stadium that held bike races) outside the city and eventually transported to Auschwitz (no person deported was been found to have lived). In the end, over 13,000 people were sent to their deaths, 44% being women and 31% children. Of course this was another horrible atrocity related to the Holocaust but what made it even worse was those who carried out the arrests and deportations were French police, not Nazi soldiers. To further the horror, the French have historically ignored that this happened, that they were a part of such murders and in fact blamed their actions on the Nazis occupying their country at the time. They have taken no responsibility.
In Sarah's Key, the reader goes back and forth between the two main characters, forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond living in present day 2002 and 10-year-old Sarah living in 1942. Julia is American by birth and moved to Paris when she was 20. She works for an American magazine and is given the assignment of covering the 60th anniversary of the Vél' d'Hiv' roundups. She soon learns that the apartment she and her husband plan to move into was acquired by his family when its Jewish occupants were arrested and deported 60 years before. Sarah is one of the children who called that apartment home. She 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. What follows is the story of what her life was like until she died as well as Julia's discovery of the facts.
I'm fascinated by the Holocaust and have read many books dealing with those who suffered because of it. This was a story I had never heard and was completely ignorant of. I was entranced and horrified. I hate to say I "loved" this book because how can you love something that tells such a horrible tale so I'll just say that it was amazing. The writing was great, the story was heart-breaking and real and different and I recommend this to everyone. These unknown atrocities are the types of stories that must come out and everyone must read in order for these things to never happen again.
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