<p>I was devastated but not surprised that he didn’t make it. I just kept holding out hope, just like Sarah.
What bothered me more was her inability to ever get over it and commiting suicide later in life.</p>
<p>Yes, I knew the outcome would be tragic. And my general complaint about the book is that I pretty much could figure out everything that would happen well before it happened. I think it was a weakness of the book that I could tell what would happen from a mile away over and over and over again. It’s been a number of months since I read the book, but that was how I felt. I’m not sure how much I would have liked the book if I didn’t feel such a personal connection to the time period. My Jewish mother lived in Paris when the war broke out and literally was on the last train allowed to leave Paris. She went to the South of France with her mother (her father had gone ahead to America before the War and they were thus separated for the entire duration of WW II.) It was a harrowing few years, to say the least, with a number of twists and turns that could be turned into a book. So I am always drawn to books that are about that time period in that location. What really upset me was the extent of the collaboration that is revealed throughout the book. Reading about the Vel D’Hiv was heartbreaking and upsetting. It could have so easily been my family, had they waited even a few more hours. </p>
<p>I recently read, “Those who Save Us”. If you liked Sarah’s Key, you will probably like this book as well. I found “Those Who Save Us” to be more thought provoking in that it is more about those who lived through terrible times and were either evil or heroic and how people live with what they had to do to survive. It is really about the German experience, not the Jewish one.</p>
<p>I, too, assumed the outcome for the brother would be tragic. </p>
<p>Overall, I enjoyed the chapters with Sarah’s story. I learned about the Vel dHiv roundup, which I did not know about. I found Sarah’s chapters compelling to read.</p>
<p>The opposite chapters with Julia’s story, I found to be more of a soap opera which I found to be a weird dichotomy - one serious, heart rendering chapter (Sarah’s) then the next chapter with Julia’s story. </p>
<p>But I did enjoy the book because of its historical information.</p>
<p>I also preferred Sarah’s chapters to Julia’s. I missed Sarah’s “voice” when those chapters disappeared, although I suppose that they were stopped as a plot device to deepen the mystery of her fate.</p>
<p>mimk6, Those Who Save Us sounds interesting (and very similar in structure to Sarah’s Key) My mother-in-law grew up in WWII Germany and lived through some terrible times, including her father being dragged away by the police in the middle of the night. (He was not Jewish, but had pronounced Hitler a “madman” to friends and family and refused to declare allegiance. So he was immediately and forcibly “drafted” and died in the war soon afterward.) </p>
<p>Here’s the Amazon link to Those Who Save Us for anyone who is interested:</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Those Who Save Us (9780156031660): Jenna Blum: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Those-Who-Save-Jenna-Blum/dp/0156031663/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1250363591&sr=8-1]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Those-Who-Save-Jenna-Blum/dp/0156031663/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1250363591&sr=8-1)</p>
<p>helpingmom, my sentiments exactly. Julia’s story seemed more like a Danielle Steele novel and out of sorts with Sarah’s. I was one who held out hope for her little brother. I never expected such a graphic description of his condition when they found him.</p>
<p>Just from reading the back cover, I was pretty sure the brother’s future was grim; but I kept hoping that I was wrong. I, like Julia, had never heard of Vel D’Hiv and the round ups. I cannot even begin to imagine living during that time period. Like seiclan, I was disappointed that Sarah never could find her balance again. But unfortunately, that is sometimes true in real life.</p>
<p>Overall I enjoyed the book. As mentioned above, some parts of the story were predictable – that Michel wouldd die in the cupboard, that Julia would keep her baby, that she would get divorced from Bertrand (small loss, he sounded like a first-class jerk), and that, once you discovered her baby was a girl, that her name would be Sarah. To me, it wasn’t quite as clear to find that Sarah had killed herself, but it wasn’t a huge surprise, either. </p>
<p>In spite of parts of the book being somewhat contrived, I didn’t feel it was as overdone as the last book, “Dreamers of the Day.” That story line was over the top in terms of being contrived to fit the historical facts. “Sarah’s Key” had a little more of the soap opera thing, as another poster mentioned, but it didn’t seem as forced.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure I had never heard/learned of the roundup, either.</p>
<p>CBBBlinker, you’re right about Bertrand, and as I read the book, I was conscious of the fact that there have been very few strong, admirable, complex male protagonists in any of the three books we have read. In Guernsey, we have Mark the playboy, in Dreamers, Karl the opportunist, and in Sarah, Bertrand the louse. True, Dawsey (from Guernsey) is a good man, but thinly drawn (I think), because he is more of the romantic fantasy male than a real, multi-faceted character with a mind the reader is allowed into.</p>
<p>I loved Sarah’s story. I have read a lot of material on the Holocaust and WW2, and have never heard of Vel d’Hiv, so was quite fascinated by the facts. Julia’s story on the other hand was a total waste of time. The writing was poor, the dialogue felt contrived, the characters were cliche. I skipped pages of Julia’s story near the end…just to get to the end. Very disappoiting. I could not recommend this book to anyone.</p>
<p>I’m still struggling with the idea that Sarah didn’t share her Jewish identity at all with her husband or son. I understand it on one level because being Jewish brought so much pain, but once in America, how could she raise a son who is initially (or at least it seems so in the book) so put off by the notion that he could be Jewish?</p>
<p>^ I got the sense that he was more put off by the fact that his mother had essentially lied to him during his entire life with her, rather than his having any problem with being Jewish. But I agree, it bothered me that Sarah hid her own history (which is probably, in part, what drove her to suicide). Remaining silent seems so contrary to the Holocaust survivor’s mantra of “remember and never forget”—that is, speak out and don’t let others ever forget; obviously, the survivor never forgets.</p>
<p>That really bothered me too. Although it seems like one would like to put it all behind them and start anew, such is usually NOT the case with Holocaust survivors. This incongruency bothered me (the book didn’t ring true to me).</p>
<p>But not everyone is going to react the same. There probably were some Holocaust survivors who buried their pasts deep within themselves. Some people probably could wall off the past and make a new life. We might never know because those people wouldn’t talk about it.</p>
<p>^ Very true. I was looking for information online and found the following:</p>
<p>“The willingness of some survivors to share their stories is a recent phenomenon. For a long time, most refused to talk about the war, chiefly because the act of remembering an offense is itself traumatic. There was a lot of unresolved mourning for family members they hoped to meet again but knew deep down they never would.</p>
<p>A curtain of silence blocked out the past. The publicity surrounding Eichmann’s 1961 trial lifted it slightly. But it wasn’t until the 1980s, when survivors came to terms with their own mortality and public interest in the Holocaust grew apace, that America’s remnant of European Jewry took up the obligation to remember.”</p>
<p>[Holocaust</a> Survivors: Texts - “The Holocaust and History:<br>Introduction to the Survivors’ Stories”](<a href=“Holocaust Survivors”>Holocaust Survivors)</p>
<p>Sarah lived and died in the era of the “curtain of silence.”</p>
<p>Mary13 and others – it was not uncommon for Holocaust survivors to remain silent where their children were concerned. I knew a woman who did her dissertation on the children of Holocaust Survivors. She interviewed many adult children whose parents had never spoken of what they had gone through to their children – ever. She believed it was an effort to shield their children from the horror they had lived through. I would speculate it was also a way of managing to live in the present. It’s not all that uncommon. My own mother said very little about the hardships she endured while hiding during the war. Most of what I know, I learned after she died.</p>
<p>That makes sense. And in Sarah’s case, the son she left behind was only 12. Maybe if Sarah had lived, she would have told him her history as he grew more mature (and more inquisitive).</p>
<p>It’s not just Holocaust survivors who don’t talk about the past. My dad hardly ever talked about his service in WWII. He only did when his granddaughter wrote to him on Veteran’s Day as part of a school assignment. And he wasn’t even in any major battles. Many people don’t want to relive traumatic events.</p>
<p>I didn’t know anything about the three books we selected this summer before I read them, and in many ways they are very different from one another. But isn’t it interesting how the shadow of the Holocaust hovers in varying degrees over all three? In Guernsey, we learn of the suffering of Elizabeth and Remy in the concentration camp; in Dreamers, Agnes recounts Karl’s capture by the Nazis, and his family’s desperate attempt to leave Germany; and in Sarah’s Key, of course, the events of the Holocaust figure prominently throughout. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, or if it’s that the topic is virtually unavoidable—woven throughout numerous genres, as we continue to try to come to terms with the immensity of what took place.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to a very short video interview with Tatiana de Rosnay. She doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, but for me, it often adds another dimension to actually hear an author talk about his or her work.</p>
<p>[Interview</a> with Tatiana de Rosnay, author of “Sarah’s Key”](<a href=“http://www.jewishliteraryreview.com/post/Interview-with-Tatiana-de-Rosnay.aspx]Interview”>http://www.jewishliteraryreview.com/post/Interview-with-Tatiana-de-Rosnay.aspx)</p>
<p>The following are a couple of print interviews. There are quite a few out there—she must have been very busy on the book PR circuit after Sarah’s Key was published.</p>
<p>[Book</a> Club Q & A with Tatiana de Rosnay, author of Sarah’s Key Books on the Brain](<a href=“http://lisamm.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2009/03/21/book-club-q-a-with-tatiana-de-rosnay-author-of-sarahs-key/]Book”>Book Club Q & A with Tatiana de Rosnay, author of Sarah’s Key | Books on the Brain)</p>
<p>[She</a> Is Too Fond Of Books … Blog Archive Interview with Tatiana de Rosnay, author of <em>Sarah’s Key</em>](<a href=“http://www.sheistoofondofbooks.com/2008/10/21/interview-with-tatiana-de-rosnay-author-of-sarahs-key/]She”>http://www.sheistoofondofbooks.com/2008/10/21/interview-with-tatiana-de-rosnay-author-of-sarahs-key/)</p>
<p>Tatiana de Rosnay mentions (in the interview above) that Sarah’s Key is in the process of being made into a film. I’m sure that will be a tearjerker—Sarah’s half of the story would be hard to watch.</p>
<p>Mary and others very interesting discussion about Sarah’s Key, things got too busy here, with guests and trips. and I didn’t read this one.
Interesting comments, Mary about the role of WW2 in each book.</p>
<p>Which book did you like the most/ least?</p>