52 Books in 52 Weeks - Book 27: Sarah's Key

"It's the police, Maman. They're banging on the door...Have they come to take Papa away..Have they come for him?"

Two men stood there. One was a policeman, wearing his dark blue knee-length cape and a high, round hat. The other man wore a beige raincoat. He had a list in his hand. Once again he said the woman's name. And the father's name. He spoke perfect French. Then we are safe, thought the girl. If they are French, and not German, we are not in danger. If they are French, they will not harm us.

 Sarah's Key relates the story of a fictional family as they suffer through the Vel d'Hiv - the roundup of the Jewish people in France, conducted by their very own French police. Sure they will be returning, Sarah Starzynski  locks her brother Michael in a secret compartment and leaves with her parents. Unknown to her, they are bound for Auschwitz, with the key to the compartment in her possession. The story of what happens to this family, to young Michael and to the family who lives in their very apartment in the early part of the twenty-first century is a spellbinding tale. Tatiana de Rosnay has woven a tale that brings home the tragedy of the Holocaust in a unique way by crossing the generations and telling the story from the point of view of the victims as well as the point of view of those living in the apartment sixty years later. This hard to put down story is one that you will long remember.