My rating
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 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.
My thought
This story is about the Jewish persecution in 1942 conducted by the French - most commonly known as "The Round Up" of French Jews. The story vacillates between current day and 1942.
The story is a fictional account of one young girl who, with her family, is arrested, and then the parallel story of an American woman married to a Frenchman who discovers what happened to this girl, and to all of the Jews on that day. The French government refused to apologize for what happened under Vichy rule until 1985, when President Chirac gave a speech saying that the state had to acknowledge their wrongdoings and that it was a permanent stain on French history.This was a very suspenseful book. Lots of mystery. Very emotional in some parts
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.
