Zakhor. Al Tichkah. - Remember. Never Forget.

Last week I was in Cracow, Poland, on a business trip and used one of the days I had time off to travel to Oświęcim/Auschwitz to learn more about this dark part of history that never should be forgotten.

I really had to fight back tears after seeing the baby clothes and the suitcases of little Hanna - born in 1941 - and Clara - born in 1944 - which were collected after their arrival at the camp.

Just a couple of days before this visit to the Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial and State Museum, I had started to read Sarah's Key written by Tatiana de Rosnay after recommendations from both a colleague and one of my sisters.

Paris, July 1942: Sarah, a ten year-old Jewish girl, is arrested by the French police in the middle of the night, along with her mother and father. Desperate to protect her younger brother, she locks him in a cupboard and promises to come back for him as soon as she can.

Paris, May 2002: Julia Jarmond, an American journalist, is asked to write about the 60th anniversary of the Vel' d'Hiv'--the infamous day in 1942 when French police rounded up thousands of Jewish men, women and children, in order to send them to concentration camps.

Sarah's Key is the poignant story of two families, forever linked and haunted by one of the darkest days in France's past.

It is one of the most moving books I have ever read and at the same time a horrible reminder of what people can be capable of doing to others. Therefore, as Sarah wrote herself: Zakhor. Al Tichkah. - Remember. Never Forget.