Sarah's Key

Sarah's Key is a 2010 French drama film directed and co-written by Gilles Paquet-Brenner. The film is an adaptation of the 2006 novel with the same title by Tatiana de Rosnay. The film alternates between a young girl Sarah (Mélusine Mayance) in 1942 and journalist Julia (Kristin Scott Thomas) in 2009 who is researching Sarah's story. It tells the story of Sarah's experiences during and after the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of Jews in German-occupied Paris in 1942 and the participation of bureaucracy in Vichy France and French citizens hiding and protecting Sarah from the French authorities. Plot In 1942, 10-year-old Sarah Starzynski (Mélusine Mayance) hides her younger brother from French police by locking him in a secret closet and telling him to stay there until she returns. She takes the key with her when she and her parents are transported to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, where they are held in inhuman conditions by the Paris Police and French Secret Service. The deportees are transferred to the French-run Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp. The adults are deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, leaving the children in the camp. When Sarah tries to escape with her friend Rachel, a sympathetic Paris police guard spots them. When Sarah begs him to let them go so she can save her brother, he hesitates then lifts the barbed wire to let them out.