Sarah's Key, by Tatiana de Rosnay

Vel' d'Hiv'--this unfamiliar (to me) phrase is at the center of Sarah's Key. It refers to the July 1942 round-up of Parisian Jews (including many children) by French police; the Jews were detained in horrific conditions at a Velodrome (an arena where bicycle races were held), before being sent to camps outside Paris and eventually to Auchswitz, where they were killed. The event reveals the Vichy government's degree of complicity with the Nazis; like other "untaught" events in history, Vel' d'Hiv' is something more people should know about.

In the first half of her book, Tatiana de Rosnay informs us about Vel' d'Hiv' through alternating narratives. We see the event through the eyes of Sarah, a young Jewish girl who experienced it directly. She, her mother, and her father are taken by the police, but her younger brother hides in a cupboard in their apartment. We also watch as Julia Jarmond, an American journalist who has lived in France for 25 years, investigates Vel' d'Hiv' for a story to mark the 60th anniversary of the tragedy. She discovers that many French people know little or nothing about the events--and do not want to know or talk about it. She also learns that her husband's family has an unexpected relationship to Vel' d'Hiv'. Her fascination with the subject and her attempts to probe ever-deeper into the event add stress to an already flawed marriage. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant at 45, the marriage reaches a precipice.

Midway through the book, there is a climactic moment; after that point, the book is told entirely from Julia's perspective, although we continue to learn more about Sarah as Julia's research unfolds. I felt the loss of Sarah's voice keenly--once the chapters from her perspective disappeared, the book was less interesting. The writing itself is competent though not transporting, and I could have done without the pregnancy subplot. Nonetheless, Sarah's Key is well worth reading (I finished it in a day, albeit a day that included a plane trip), and I look forward to our Novel Conversations discussion.

Favorite passage:

My grandmother was fifteen at the time of the roundup. She was told she was free because they were only taking small children between two and twelve with their parents. She was left behind. And they took all the others. Her little brothers, her little sister, her mother and father, her aunt, her uncle. Her grandparents. It was the last time she ever saw them. No one came back. No one at all.