Sarah's Key (novel)
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''Sarah's Key'' is a
historical fiction Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...
novel by Franco-British author
Tatiana de Rosnay Tatiana de Rosnay (born 28 September 1961) is a French writer. Life and career Tatiana de Rosnay was born on 28 September 1961 in the suburbs of Paris. She is of English, French and Russian descent. Her father is French scientist Joël de Ros ...
, first published in French as ' in September 2006. Two main parallel plots are followed through the book. The first is that of ten-year-old Sarah Starzynski, a
Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
girl born in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, who is arrested with her parents during the
Vel' d'Hiv Roundup The Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup ( ; from french: Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv', an abbreviation of ) was a mass arrest of foreign Jewish families by Vichy France, French police and Gendarmerie, gendarmes at the behest of the Nazi Germany, German authorities, tha ...
. Before they go, she locks her four-year-old brother in a cupboard, thinking the family should be back in a few hours. The second plot follows Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in Paris, who is asked to write an article in honour of the 60th anniversary of the roundup. The book was rejected by more than 20 publishers before being published by Héloïse d'Ormesson, whom she had profiled in French Elle in 2005. As of 2021, the novel has sold 11 million copies in 44 countries.


Plot


July 1942

The first plot follows the Starzynski family. On 16 July 1942, French police raided the Starzynski apartment in Paris, arresting ten-year-old Sarah and her parents. First, the family is sent to the
Vélodrome d'Hiver The Vélodrome d'Hiver (, ''Winter Velodrome''), colloquially Vel' d'Hiv', was an indoor bicycle racing cycle track and stadium (velodrome) on rue Nélaton, not far from the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As well as a Track cycling, cycling track, it was ...
, an enclosed stadium that housed a bicycling track for racing. The captors held more than 7,000 Jews, mostly women and children in the stadium, which was made to hold far fewer people, and they were eventually sent to
Drancy Drancy () is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris in the Seine-Saint-Denis department in northern France. It is located 10.8 km (6.7 mi) from the center of Paris. History Toponymy The name Drancy comes from Medieval Lati ...
, a refugee camp, to separate the men from the women and children and then later, they separated the mothers from the children. Later, we find out, they were all sent to
Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
. Sarah, now on her own, is still tormented by thoughts of her brother locked in the secret closet at home, and tries to escape with Rachel, another Jewish girl at the camp. They are caught, but the officer that catches them is a man that Sarah knows from her old life. She begs him to let her go to rescue her brother. He reluctantly helps them escape and even gives the two girls money. The girls find refuge with an elderly couple who takes them into their house, but Rachel falls ill with what is probably
diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...
or
typhus fever Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...
. The couple, Jules and Geneviève Dufaure, are compelled to call a
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
doctor, who reports to the Nazi officials that the elderly couple is hiding Jewish children. The Nazis arrive and search for more children, but without finding Sarah they take Rachel away and she presumably dies. Jules and Geneviève dress Sarah in boy's clothes (her hair had been cut short at Drancy) and help her get to her former home in Paris. She had been keeping the key to the closet in her pocket the whole time. She knocks at the door, screaming her beloved younger brother's name. A young boy, Edouard (Bertrand's father) opens the door and Sarah rushes into the house, nearly kicking the door to her former room and quickly opens the closet. She collapses and starts to cry hysterically. Edouard's father comes into the room and removes Michel from the closet and laid him on Edouard's bed, who had died by then (shriveled up), hidden in the closet waiting for Sarah.


Julia Jarmond

The second plot follows Julia Jarmond. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts but moved to
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in her early twenties and married a Frenchman named Bertrand Tezac and had a daughter, Zoë. Sometime prior to the action of the book, Bertrand had cheated on Julia with a woman named Amélie after Julia had suffered a miscarriage. The apartment they are thinking of moving into happens to have belonged to the Starzynski family prior to being inhabited by Bertrand's grandparents and father, who was then about Sarah's age, but neither Julia nor Bertrand are aware of this. Julia's boss, Joshua, asks her to write an article about the
Vel' d'Hiv Roundup The Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup ( ; from french: Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv', an abbreviation of ) was a mass arrest of foreign Jewish families by Vichy France, French police and Gendarmerie, gendarmes at the behest of the Nazi Germany, German authorities, tha ...
, as the 60th anniversary was nearing. Julia tries to find out more about the roundup and through her research and questioning of Bertrand's grandmother discovers whom the apartment once belonged to. When Julia finds out and tells Bertrand, he does not seem to care. Julia becomes obsessed with the story of young Sarah Starzynski, who was recorded to have been taken to Beaune-la-Rolande, but was not recorded to have returned nor taken to a gas chamber. She does more research and finds out she ran away, but she loses trace of her after that. She does a little more research and becomes in touch with descendants of Jules and Geneviève and they tell her that Sarah had continued to live with the family into her teens, but she grew up an introverted, sad young woman. Julia finds out she is pregnant, but Bertrand says she must either choose between an abortion or a divorce. She chooses to have the baby. She discovers that Sarah married and had a son. Sarah had died when her son William was a young boy and Julia arranges to meet him in his home of Italy. He is very reluctant to learn of his mother's story and asks that Julia not contact him again. Weeks later, the same night Bertrand's grandmother has a stroke, William shows up in France, finally ready to hear Sarah's story. After Julia delivers her daughter she and Bertrand part ways; Bertrand moves in with Amélie and Julia does not feel comfortable about moving into the apartment they were to have moved into, with its sad history of Sarah, Michel and their parents. She moves to
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
with Zoë and the baby. William, having uprooted his own life too in the wake of everything he has learned about his mother, also moves to New York City and eventually tracks down Julia again. He shares with her some of Sarah's writings that he found in his father's drawer. It is revealed that Sarah did not merely die from a car accident as previously believed, but had killed herself intentionally, unable to bear with the pain of her secret past any longer.


Characters


Sarah Starzynski

Sarah Starzynski is one of the two protagonists of the book. Ten years old, she lives in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in July 1942, with her parents and brother. When she gets taken to Beaune-la-Rolande, she desperately tries to escape. After she finds her brother's body, she grows up a broken woman and eventually dies by suicide (the official story is that she died in a car accident but Julia discovers that she deliberately crashed her car into an oncoming tractor-trailer truck).


Julia Jarmond

Julia Jarmond is the other protagonist of the book. She was born and raised in
Brookline, Massachusetts Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Boston, Brighton, A ...
, but always preferred France over America and moved to Paris in her early twenties. She marries Bertrand Tezac and has a daughter, but they are no longer in love when the book starts. She is deeply touched by Sarah's story and names her second daughter after her.


Other characters

* Michel Starzynski, Sarah's four-year-old brother, is an important character, as he is Sarah's motivation to escape her captors. He is not taken to the camp, but dies in the secret room where Sarah locked him when the family was taken to Vel' d'Hiv. * Wladyslaw & Rywka Starzynski are Sarah and Michel's parents who are both transported to
Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
for extermination. Rywka is deeply marked by the events she witnesses and it seems that she would willingly allow herself to be killed until they separate her from Sarah - this is when the mother Sarah knew and remembered reemerges. Wladyslaw Starzynski is willing to fight, but he is taken almost immediately from the French camp to Auschwitz where he is sent to the gas chambers. * Jules and Geneviève Dufaure are an older couple who find Sarah and Rachel hiding in their doghouse after they escaped from the concentration camp. The couple take the two girls in to live in their house. The Dufaures try to hide the two girls from any Nazi Police, but eventually Rachel is taken away by the Nazi Police when the Dufaures must find medical help for her because she is deathly ill. Sarah tries to leave by herself to find her brother in their apartment in Paris, but the couple goes with her to then find her brother dead. Sarah stays with the couple and their family until adulthood when she moves to the United States to become a nanny. * William Rainsferd is Sarah's only child and lives in
Lucca Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as one o ...
. He does not know much about his mother's past and did not want to know much at the beginning. He later reaches out to Julia and learns all about his mother's past, something that moves him greatly. * Richard Rainsferd is Sarah's husband and William's father. * Rachel is Sarah's friend who escapes with her. She dies of what appears to be
typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...
or
diphtheria Diphtheria is an infection caused by the bacterium '' Corynebacterium diphtheriae''. Most infections are asymptomatic or have a mild clinical course, but in some outbreaks more than 10% of those diagnosed with the disease may die. Signs and s ...
. * Zoë Tezac is Julia's older daughter. She is 11 years old at the beginning of the book and 13 at the end. She Julia's support system and is described as a "calm and mature" child. She takes a keen interest in Julia's quest to find Sarah. * Bertrand Tezac is Julia's husband who is, as Zoë describes him, "totally rude". He is no longer in love with Julia and has an affair with his friend Amelie. *Amelie is Bertrand's girlfriend. Julia recalls an event from the past when she found out her husband was having an affair with Amelie. Later in the novel, Julia suspects that Bertrand is still in love with Amelie. They get a divorce and he admits his love for Amelie. *Christophe is Julia's friend in Paris when she first moved to Paris she lived with him and Herve. *Herve is Julia's friend in Paris. *Guillaume is a friend of Herve and Christophe; some of his family were taken during the roundup. He helps to give Julia some information about it. * Mamé is Bertrand's grandmother and the current owner of Sarah's former apartment. Her name is not revealed throughout the book, but she is very old and no longer lucid, suffering from
Alzheimer's Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As t ...
. She resides in a
home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...
. * Édouard Tezac is Bertrand's father who is present when Sarah finds Michel's body in 1942. He helps Julia uncover the secrets of Sarah's life later in the novel. * André Tezac is Mamé's husband and Édouard's father who is also present in 1942 and takes Michel's body out of the closet. * Sarah is Julia's younger daughter. Her last name is not revealed. As Julia and Bertrand have separated, her last name may be Jarmond or it may be Tezac.


Awards

* 2007:
Gabrielle d'Estrées Gabrielle d'Estrées, Duchess of Beaufort and Verneuil, Marchioness of Monceaux (; 157310 April 1599) was a mistress, confidante and adviser of Henry IV of France. She persuaded Henry to renounce Protestantism in favour of Catholicism in 1593. La ...
* 2008: ** Livre du Poche - Reader's choice ** ''Prix de lecteurs de Corse'' ** The Chronos Prize for Literature * 2009: La Mennais


Film adaptation

In
2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...
, a
film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...
was released, starring
Kristin Scott Thomas Dame Kristin Ann Scott Thomas (born 24 May 1960) is a British actress who also holds French citizenship. A five-time British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA Award and Laurence Olivier Award, Olivier Award nominee, she won the BAFTA Award for Best ...
as Julia and Mélusine Mayance as Sarah. It received generally positive reviews, holding a 73% ranking on
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
.


References

{{reflist 2006 French novels Novels about the Holocaust Novels set in Paris Fiction set in 1942 French novels adapted into films