Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old girl, 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.Paris, May 2002: On Vel’ d’Hiv’s 60th anniversary, journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about this black day in … day in France’s past. Through her contemporary investigation, she stumbles onto a trail of long-hidden family secrets that connect her to Sarah. Julia finds herself compelled to retrace the girl’s ordeal, from that terrible term in the Vel d’Hiv’, to the camps, and beyond. As she probes into Sarah’s past, she begins to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.
Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a brilliantly subtle, compelling portrait of France under occupation and reveals the taboos and silence that surround this painful episode.
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There is simply no other word for this must-read book…heartbreaking. Yet even though you know the tragic reality with each page turned there’s this smidgen of hope you hold tight to…
Inspiring story.
One of the best I’ve read.
A brilliant and beautiful novel about a horrific and under-reported event that took place during WWII.
A book to be read by everyone! Sarah is an inspiration for all of us. I have been to the memorial to the people who were murdered from Paris.
I loved this book.
This book has a dual storyline with connections to a Paris apartment. It begins during the war in July 1942, when the life of a ten-year-old girl becomes a living nightmare. As the French police arrive, ordering her family to pack their essentials before hauling them away, the girl hides her little brother in their favorite hiding cabinet inside …
This story is about the holocaust, and a little Jewish girl and her family. The story takes place in Paris. Her family is taken away by the French Police and taking to the concentration camps. The other characters in the story are from the present time who are living in Paris. The woman character is a writer for a local American newspaper and …
I happened to read the book just before I went to Paris, read most of it in the city, so the book was very realistic for me.
Then, once again I read the book in one day and didn’t rest or quiet until I finished it.
The story is little Sara story; she and her Jewish family taken in July 1942 to a transit camp and from there straight road to …
Absolutely loved reading this book.
Nazi books haunt me and this one was no exception.
An unforgetable, beautifully written historial fiction. I was educated on a bit of history I had never learned about while enjoying a story filled with wonderful characters and a plot full of twists and turns.
I enjoyed it very much
This is an amazing, heart wrenching story. It’s well told and well written. The twists are unimaginable.
Excellent book. Couldn’t put it down
This book started out really good. I loved the way each chapter flipped back and forth from Sarah in 1942 to Julia in the present day. It stopped in the middle and that’s when I started to dislike the book–not just for the disrupted format of the book (because in some ways I guess I understand why the Sarah narrative ended), but because I felt …
I loved this book! There are 2 story threads that converge at the end. It is very well written and I couldn’t put it down. I have recommended this book to several of my friends, one of which is in a book club.
This is a book that you will never forget. The haunting story of the agony of families torn apart by treatment of Jewish people during WW11, will stay in your heart. The fact that people were jailed in their own country by French police was shocking. While the book is a work of fiction, the author sticks to history to tell Sarah’s heartbreaking …
Enjoyed this story. Very well told story based on a historical event.
A tragic story of humans who were thought to be nothing, and were disposed of like garbage. A mystery is solved. The setting: during and after WWII.