Summary

Sarah's key was a heart-breaking novel based on two stories combined in one. It starts off by a young girl named Sarah Starzynski telling her story of when she was arrested with her family by the French police in the Vel d'Hiv round-up of 1942. When she is arrested, they had the list of every family member, but Sarah somehow manages to get her 3 year old brother into a secret cabinet that only they knew about. She kept the key as her and her parents were taken to an indoor track with thousands of other Jewish people. They were left there for 5 days with only one cup of water, and no food. She explains what they went through and eventually, she was seperated from her mother and father.
She is sent to a concentration camp for the Jewish children as her parents are immediately sent to be killed. She finds a friend at the camp and manages to escape to go save her little brother. A kind policeman lets them go under a fence and off they went. Days go by and they finally find an old, kind German couple that lets them stay and eat in their home. After the first day, Sarah's friend is caught by the German Nazi police and taken to be killed. Sarah stays and is raised by the German couple after she goes back to Paris to find out that her little brother was still in the cabinet, dead. There was also a new family living in that apartment only 10 days after being gone.
60 years go by and it is the year of 2002. An american journalist named Julia living in Paris ends up being connected to Sarah Starzynski and wants to find out every detail of Sarah's life. She goes through so many people and sources and after getting her story, she finds Sarah's son. He knew nothing about his own mother since she had never told him anything about the holocaust or her past experiences. Julia's father in law was the one who helped her figure many things out because it was his family that had moved into Sarah's apartment after the Jewish round-up.
Sarah's story helps Julia figure out her life and helps her decide if she wants to stay with her husband or not. She sees the good things in her life and eventually moves back to United States. In the end, she ends up bumping into Sarah Starzynski's son, who is around her age, and they become friends, sharing mutual feelings on Sarah's story, and cherish Sarah's key.