Sarah Starzynski, a ten-year-old Parisian girl born to Jewish parents, is captured in June 16, 1942, and imprisoned with almost 10,000 others in an indoor cycling arena, the Vélodrome d'Hiver, awaiting transportation to Auschwitz. When the police arrive, she has just time to hide her younger brother in a concealed closet in their apartment, locking him in and promising to return.
Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist married to a Frenchman, researching for a story on the "Vél d'Hiv," stumbles on the trail of Sarah's family, and becomes obsessed with trying to discover her fate. She is struck by the fact that the round-up and subsequent disposal was carried out, not by the Gestapo, but by ordinary French policemen, enabled by a citizenry that for the most part looked the other way. A coincidental discovery leads her to question the involvement of her husband's family at the time and to re-examine her own marriage.
I have read a number of books dealing with the Holocaust, either it interests you or it doesn’t. If you enjoy this type of book normally, then you will for sure like Sarah’s Key.
Hi I'm not INTO holocaust stories, but have read a couple. You HAVE to read "The Reader" (by Bernhard Schlink) if you haven't yet! I wouldn't call it a holocaust story, but it is set in the time in Germany and has some involvement that way... it's more a great great GREAT story with a real moral/philosophical twist. It got me. The opinion I held at the beginning was turned on its head by the end. And subtly done too.
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