Posts Tagged ‘nazi’

The French Holocaust

Tuesday, August 12th, 2008

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnayddd

This is a very sad, truly haunting book, whose images and impressions will linger with you long after you’ve set the finished book down.

Set in two times, 1942 occupied France and in today’s Paris, the novel follows the stories of two very different women, and how their lives intersect.

The first is Sarah Starzynski, a ten-year-old girl, born in France to her Polish Jewish immigrant parents. She and her 4-year-old brother Robert have been shielded from the meaning and events of the war, and when they are made to wear yellow stars on their clothing, her mother explains that it is because they should be proud to be Jewish. So when the events of July 16, 1942 - the great Vélodrome d’Hiver round-up - take place, her ignorance leads to tragedy. Because the men who come to take them away are French policemen, not the scary Germans, Sarah lets her brother go to their “secret hiding place,” and complies when he asks her to lock him in, and take the key. They both assume she’ll be home in a little while. Their mother knows about the little cupboard, so it is always stocked with a jar of water, some bread and a flashlight.

The main character in today’s Paris is Julia, an American journalist married to a native Parisian. Assigned to do a story on “the Vel d’Hiv” for its upcoming anniversary, she faces ignorance and denial from the French almost everywhere she turns. Younger French folk have never heard of it, and her Parisian husband and his family don’t want to talk about it. In speaking with his grandmother, Mamé, she begins to make connections about the apartment they are currently renovating, and her inlaws, always cold to her, resent her doing any digging.

Julia, who grew up in Boston, had never heard of “the Vel d’Hiv” round-up, and neither had I. Julia’s research, and Sarah’s story of her family’s treatment at the hands of the French policemen, combine for a riveting, and tragic tale. It is not all depressing though, as we also follow Julia’s own story as she is dealing with what she learns as her own marriage is ending and a new life is beginning.

This is an excellent book, compelling and well-written, and once I started it, I read it until I finished it in one night. I completely reccomend this book to anyone who believes we must learn our history in order to not repeat it. The real facts behind the novel are given at the end, in a section called “Historical perspective” and the whole book will haunt you and stay with you forever. It is no wonder it was an International Bestseller, and I fully expect it to be one here as well. It is scheduled to be released in October 2008.

Story for the Perpetually Angry One

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

Island of Saints by Andy Andrews
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I picked this book up, not knowing whether it was fiction or nonfiction, and just started reading. A wonderful story, either way, it begins with a discovery on an island off the Alabama coast. Digging in his garden, the author finds mysterious relics, which after some Internet research, he discovers are Nazi memorabilia, and a photo of a young family from that era.

This intrigues him enough so that he begins a quest to find out about these people, and the history of the place he now lives. Nazis in Alabama? That was certainly not in any history curriculum in his school.

The journey he takes unfolds back in the 1940s and jumps forward to today, but does so pretty smoothly. The main character of the “back story” is a very angry young woman, a stranger in this small-town Alabama world. And in the process of the story, and the valuable lesson it teaches, I am told (and checked the back cover to verfiy) that it is a ’self-help” book. I don’t normally read that genre recreationally, but this one was different. The narrative flows right along, the “lesson” comes pretty subtly, and all in all it is a delightful little book. In fact it is such a lovely little book that I am sending a copy to a very angry young woman I know today, in hopes that she’ll not only enjoy the story, but maybe find a better way to deal with her own anger. Regardless, the book also teaches a bit of history that is not in textbooks, and that paints a picture not in black and white, but in the many shades of gray that exist in the time of war. Interesting and apropos of today’s world for many …