Sarah's Key

Tatiana de ROSNAY, "Sarah's Key"

There are things, I know, I’ll never forget: my mother’s voice, the taste of her apple pie, my dad’s advices (he had served as a soldier. In case of war, I would know what to do…) The first words my children said (Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa and Papa! The instructor's eyes when I was 5 years old, I fell into swamps, she was looking at me, I was sinking, disappearing… The first time I went to Paris, the old guard at the Musée d'Orsay. My first cigarette in the garage of a classmate, I was 13, I vomited… The first boy I kissed, I found it shocking, I told him ... The first time I got married, I swore "It's the last one!" It was indeed. The first book that made me cry, I remember like it was yesterday. I was coming back from a holiday, a couple of years ago. A night in April, rain, highway… No one slept in the car…

While my husband was driving in all seriousness, I was searching for some sweet-sounding music on the radio that would lull my children but there was only that wild music… Then I stumbled upon Tatiana de Rosnay, she was interviewed for her new novel, “Sarah’s key”. Her voice in the night, her feelings… It was cold, we had to turn on the heating… Everybody in the van was listening to her. Because of her voice and her emotion, there was no more rain, no night, no highway but only that woman who told in the radio about this little girl…

Paris. Summer of 1942. The second world war. The Shoah. The deportation of Jews. The round-up of the Vel d’Hiv. French policemen arresting thousands of Jews, knocking on doors, shouting and little kids crying because they didn’t understand what was happening to them. People behind curtains. Misunderstanding. Cries. Horror. Death soon. So many crimes…

Families crowded into the Velodrome d’Hiver. Heat. Suicides. Babies born. Babies dead. Separations. Forever. Dreadfulness. And shame. Silence. The years filling. Forgetting. A commemorative monument. Chirac’s speech. And my little ones, my husband and i, now, listening in the car...

Paris again. July 2002. Julia Jarmond, an American journalist has to write an article about the round-up of the Vel d'Hiv’s commemoration. She doesn’t know anything about this event. French people never talk about it. She tries to understand and begins to collect information and soon she discovers the crimes, the atrocities, she realizes horrors inflicted on thousands and thousands of people.

One day, she has to pay particular attention to a little girl, Sarah, who lived during the second world war. She investigates, as she puts in place pieces of the puzzle and she gathers confirmations and decides to break the silence.

Parallel to this plot, a second “novel” tells the true about Sarah, this young girl taken away during this awful night. In a heroic motion, she locked her younger brother in the secret closet of the flat and swore she would be back soon. The boy knew his sister never forgot her promises.

Tatiana de Rosnay wrote this novel in English, her native language. I remember, she said “I was unable to write in French like my other books. It was so difficult for me…”

She is perfectly bilingual, but you can feel when she writes in English that her style, her characters are more believable, exciting that when she writes in french. Some people claims (I read) that she uses clichés. Perhaps… I don’t know, I don’t care, I don’t find that annoying and I’m just captivated, fascinated by the way she operates the theme of secrecy.

"Sarah’s key” is communally cited as an unforgettable novel. You can believe it! I've lent this book to my friends, to my doctor, to everyone and I haven't received any negative opinion. To tell it like it is, everybody admires the construction of the plot, the poignant scenes, the pace: fairly short passages: we go from second world war to now with subtle clues which help us to reconstruct the real story of Sarah.

A great great novel! One million copies sold, a movie soon and especially a message: don’t let time do its work, never forget!

Paris, July 1942

The girl was the first to hear the loud pounding on the door. Her room was closest to the entrance of the apartment. At first, dazed with sleep, she thought it was her father, coming up from his hiding place in the cellar. He’d forgotten his keys, and was impatient because nobody had heard his first, timid knock. But then came the voices, strong and brutal in the silent of the night. Nothing to do with her father. “Police! Open up! Now!”
The pounding took up again, louder. It echoed to the marrow of her bones. Her younger brother, asleep in the next bed, stirred. “Police! Open up! Open up!” What time was it? She peered through the curtains. It was still dark outside.
She was afraid. She remember the recent, hushed conversations she had overheard, late at night, when her parents thought she was asleep. She had crept up to the living room door and she had listened and watched from a little crack through the panel. Her father’s nervous voice . Her mother’s anxious face. They spoke their native tongue, which the girl understood, although she was not as fluent as them. Her father had whispered that times ahead would be difficult. That they would be to be brave and very careful. He pronounced strange, unknown words: “camps”, “roundup, a big roundup”, “early morning arrests”, and the girl wondered what all of it meant…

(Extract from: Tatiana de Rosnay, "Sarah's Key")