Children in Peril

       The book Sarah's Key written by Tatiana de Rosnay has captured my attention and my heart. It begins as two side-by-side stories but I want to focus on the little girl. Sarah is a ten-year old Jewish girl living in Paris when the French police come in the dark of night to take her, her mother and father away. The time is July 1942. Through Sarah’s observations, thoughts and feelings we are exposed to the horrors of the incarcerations, bus and train rides, the camps, the separation of families. Through the many questions she poses to herself we are bombarded with the atrocity of her situation.

          The fathers are taken away first, then the mothers are torn from their children. Sarah clings to her mother until the very last minute. What follows for Sarah is the enormous amount of crying and calling that ensues.I was especially struck when she describes the toddlers who had identification tags tied to them.f course they removed them as all children of that age do. So now there is a pile of tags and a large number of unnamed children.

          I just paused and was overcome with the thoughts of children in our own country more than 75 years later who are experiencing much the same—the border children, the abducted children, the stolen children, the abused children.heir horrifying dread, their extreme fear, the great uncertainty they face overwhelms me.

          I pray for our country, our lawmakers, and social workers to do their best to make a bad situation better. I pray for the foster and adoptive families that try through many hardships to return the children to some normalcy.And I pray that I always treat others with respect and know when I need to say I’m sorry.

       Sr. Mary Rabe, OSB