Histoire des arts, thème sur la Seconde Guerre Mondiale.

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Sarah’s Key (“Elle s’appelait Sarah”) is a fictional story set in 2002. Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, married to a Frenchman, is asked to write an article about one of the darkest hour in France’s involvement in the Second World War, the Vel d’Hiv round up, which took place in Paris, in 1942. A family secret, will link her to the destiny of a young Jewish girl, Sarah, whose story runs parallel to that of Julia’s modern day story. Sarah Starzynski’s story starts in an atmosphere of fear and terror as the police knock on Sarah’s door one day to take her and her family away, in the year 1942. Julia learns that the apartment she plans to live with her husband, Bertrand, was acquired when its Jewish occupants were deported 60 years before. She sets out to find out what happened to the Starzynski family: Wladyslaw, Rywka, Sarah and Michel. The more she finds out about Sarah, the more she discovers about her husband’s family, his country and herself. The story of Sarah in 1942 continues to unfold with the high depiction of the torments and cruelties of the Second World War, while Julia’s story is punctuated by the modern, somewhat cruel reality to Vel D’Hiv, which for a long time has been shushed down by the French. This book reflects how some people think that the past belongs to the past and that we should move on and not care or think about it. Through the story of a 10-year old Jewish girl, Tatiana de Rosnay reminds us that the duty we have today, us spared of this heinous war, is to remember.