Summary:
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.
My take: 4 looks
Originally reviewed September 10, 2011
The parallel stories of a family caught up in the 1942 roundup of French Jews and a present-day journalist who finds her life intertwines with that of one of the victims. The writing goes back and forth between the two stories until they eventually converge at the apartment where it first began.
Written with honesty and sensitivity, this is a story unlike any other I have read on WWII. Usually, stories deal with one central character in the midst of a much larger story happening around them. This one, however, hits to the heart of a tragic consequence to a very good intention. The author beautifully illustrates how this terrible war touched a tiny sliver of existence, zooming in like a magnifying glass, past a country, past a city, past a street, past a building, past an apartment, past a room, and straight onto a single cupboard. That is now minute the touch of war can be.
And war does not stay in the past. When the journalist begins writing a story about this dark time in France’s history, she discovers more about her family, and its ties to this very cupboard.
Highly recommended.
