Sarah's Key discussion at Ferrum College
How wonderful to be in a room of 15-20 women, all readers, all excited and emotional about having read Tatiana de Rosnay's book, Sarah's Key. Even our discussion leader, Dr. Marcia Horn, had found SK to be a chilling and accurate historical account of the French collaboration, and of Vel' d' Hiv; she had only recently conducted an interview with a fellow who lost his parents to that tragic day in history.
Dr. Horn had many interesting observations, including the fact that those who hated Jews called every Jewish woman "Sarah." She also asked us to think about the moment when "the girl" became Sarah. Dr. Horn was interested in Tatiana's reasons for writing the book; I gave her Tatiana's Blog site address as she very much wants to contact her via e-mail.
Dr. Horn conducts a Holocaust study class along with 9 other instructors--one a psychologist, another one from another discipline, and so on through the various contributions, making her class an extremely diverse yet complete study. Included is a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, in February. I've wanted to visit that museum since it first started up, so I immediately signed up for the February 19th bus trip. I also may join her class, which meets every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon beginning the 15th of this month.
In March, she will have as a speaker the fellow whose parents were part of the Paris roundup; apparently, he survived only because he became ill and was taken to a hospital while his parents were taken to Auschwitz where they died. We talked a great deal about the prejudices and discrimination, the blatant anti-Semitism, that still exists today and how easy it seemed for Hitler to tap into those underlying currents in order to put his outrageous plans into effect. As she said, it wasn't one man, it was a whole German army of men, an entire French police force, those neighbors looking out their windows and cheering because the Jews were being taken away.
Our group today was still gathering around and talking about the book and about the Holocaust itself, at 3 pm. We had begun with a 12:30 sandwich lunch on the campus, during which time the conversation was passionate and involved.
Dr. Horn said she will be adding Sarah's Key to her course curriculum and will be recommending it to those other 9 instructors as well.
When I was asked to speak, I gave every credit to the Franklin County Library, who had featured Sarah's Key as a book to read, giving it a prominant place on top of a bookcase of new fiction. The cover caught my eye, I read the blurbs on the back, and I was off to the races. I'm just so glad everyone in today's group felt exactly as I had felt once they read it.
Dr. Horn had many interesting observations, including the fact that those who hated Jews called every Jewish woman "Sarah." She also asked us to think about the moment when "the girl" became Sarah. Dr. Horn was interested in Tatiana's reasons for writing the book; I gave her Tatiana's Blog site address as she very much wants to contact her via e-mail.
Dr. Horn conducts a Holocaust study class along with 9 other instructors--one a psychologist, another one from another discipline, and so on through the various contributions, making her class an extremely diverse yet complete study. Included is a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, in February. I've wanted to visit that museum since it first started up, so I immediately signed up for the February 19th bus trip. I also may join her class, which meets every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon beginning the 15th of this month.
In March, she will have as a speaker the fellow whose parents were part of the Paris roundup; apparently, he survived only because he became ill and was taken to a hospital while his parents were taken to Auschwitz where they died. We talked a great deal about the prejudices and discrimination, the blatant anti-Semitism, that still exists today and how easy it seemed for Hitler to tap into those underlying currents in order to put his outrageous plans into effect. As she said, it wasn't one man, it was a whole German army of men, an entire French police force, those neighbors looking out their windows and cheering because the Jews were being taken away.
Our group today was still gathering around and talking about the book and about the Holocaust itself, at 3 pm. We had begun with a 12:30 sandwich lunch on the campus, during which time the conversation was passionate and involved.
Dr. Horn said she will be adding Sarah's Key to her course curriculum and will be recommending it to those other 9 instructors as well.
When I was asked to speak, I gave every credit to the Franklin County Library, who had featured Sarah's Key as a book to read, giving it a prominant place on top of a bookcase of new fiction. The cover caught my eye, I read the blurbs on the back, and I was off to the races. I'm just so glad everyone in today's group felt exactly as I had felt once they read it.
posted by Marion | 9:37 PM
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