Review of Sarah's Key (2010) by Zarinah H — 02 Dec 2011

I read and reviewed Sarah's Key three years ago, a book I consider one of my favorite reads. The novel dealt with two time frames, the past during the Holocaust in 1942 France, and the present. The past centers around a 10 year old Jewish girl Sarah Strazynski who is forced to go to the Velodrome d'Hiver with her mother and father, innocently leaving behind her 4 year old brother Michel locked in a secret cupboard with the assurance that she would return to let him out when it was safe. The present revolves around writer Julia, a transplanted American married to a Frenchman, who becomes consumed by the Vel d'Hiv incident, where thousands of Jewish families were rounded up and forcibly kept in the Velodrome d'Hiver before being deported to various camps, with many sent to death camps such as Auschwitz.

In the movie, Julia Tezac is a journalist who becomes obsessed with the story of the deported Jews, especially after she makes the discovery that her husband's family's apartment formerly belonged to a Jewish family by the name of Strazynski, and the tragic story of Sarah slowly unfolds. There is a little variation regarding the story in the present, as in the movie, Julia's strained relationship with her husband is caused by her refusal to terminate her pregnancy (the couple also has an older teen daughter).

Kristin Scott-Thomas who also happens to be one of my favorite actors (check out her memorable performance in I've Loved You So Long, does an amazing job in her role as the relentless journalist in pursuit of the truth. Just as author de Rosnay portrays in the novel, Scott-Thomas deftly handles her role as a writer who realizes that the pursuit of truth can not only bring about pain and disrupt people's lives, but also provide catharsis and hope for the future.

Sarah's Key is a sad story, portraying how one life can be so dramatically altered due to tragic circumstances. It is a story of the Holocaust, yet also a very human drama that conveys all the burden of memory and emotional baggage that follows one through life, and how this in turn affects others through relationships and by association. I wept when I read the book, and I cried as I watched this movie to its conclusion, and was happy that this was one of those rare occasions when the movie did the book justice.