If you're reading Suite Francaise, read the appendices as well

For anyone reading Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise, I would say you absolutely must read the appendices, which are as significant and powerful as the novel itself. The appendices consist of, at first, IM's ongoing notes to herself about her overall plan for the novel, which she foresaw as of five sections, carrying through to the end of the Second World War; of course she completed only the first two sections, and even those w/ some lacunae and rough spots. IM's notes to herself cease in 1942, when she was arrested and deported to a detention camp and finally to Auschwitz; we see in these sections her last message home to her husband, Michel Epstein, and then end w/ the abrupt note that she died (I would say "was murdered") at Auschwitz. But her husband never knew her fate; we read his extensive correspondence with IM's publisher and with many officials and friends, trying desperately to learn of her fate and to get her released from prison. through these letters and messages we see the horrors of the Nazi occupation of France and in particular the disgraceful anti-Semitic laws and rules: Jews could not be published, the government could seize their assets (and royalties), anyone sheltering or aiding Jews could be imprisoned, and on it goes. It's sad beyond measure to see Epstein's pathetic attempts to learn of IM's fate and to gain her release, in particular as he tries to make the case that she was anti-Bolshevik (and a practicing Catholic) - as if any of that would matter. Epstein, too, was seized and murdered at Auschwitz. We can see, through these letters and telegrams, why IM herself in SF wrote nothing about the treatment of Jews, nothing about the camps, nothing about Hitler, and in general depicted the occupying forces as a bunch of nice young men who were wished they could get along w/ the villagers, in particular w/ the young women. She either had no sense of what was happening in her world - unlikely - or sailed with the wind to the extent that she was able. She was brave - but only up to a point. And to read of her treatment and her fate makes us mourn the loss of what she could have written, the life she - and millions of others - could have led.