52 Books: Book 14

As a teenager I went through a phase where I read everything I could about the Holocaust. I needed to know about these terrible things and each story broke my heart a little more. When I was in college, I had the opportunity to visit the Natzweiler-Struthof camp in France. It was a truly disturbing and heart-wrenching experience. 

 

After coming across several recommendations for Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay, I finally picked up a copy and read it. For me, reading this novel was a bit like seeing a movie that has been hyped up too much. It was an interesting story, but not what I expected.

The author weaves together two stories that occur in two time periods through alternating chapters. Sarah's story is about a girl who is part of the Vel’ d’Hiv’ round up in Paris. The horrific tale is based on true events in which Parisian law enforcement round up thousands of Jews and send them to camps – almost all are sent to Auschwitz and do not survive.

Julia's story is about an American journalist who has lived in France for most of her life. She has the opportunity to write about the Vel’ d’Hiv’ round up. Through her research she discovers that she has a personal connection to Sarah and that Sarah was one of the few to survive the Vel’ d’Hiv’ atrocity. 

For me, Sarah's story was compelling, sad and informative – this is the first time I had heard of Vel’ d’Hiv’. I wish the novel had been more about Sarah and less about Julia. I didn't really connect with what was going on in the modern-day parts of the book. It felt too contrived, not at all what I connected with as a teenager reading books like The Diary of Anne Frank or my experience at Natzweiler-Struthof.