Sarah Starzynski
Sarah Starzynski is one of the two protagonists of the book. Ten years old, she lives in Paris in July 1942, with her parents and brother. When she gets taken to Beaune-la-Rolande, she desperately tries to escape. After she finds her brother's body, she grows up a broken woman and eventually commits suicide (the official story is that she died in a car accident but Julia believes she deliberately crashed her car into a tree).
Julia Jarmond
Julia Jarmond is the other protagonist of the book. She was born and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, but always preferred France over America and moved to Paris in her early twenties. She marries Bertrand Tezac and has a daughter, but they are no longer in love when the book starts. She is deeply touched by Sarah's story and names her second daughter after her.
Other characters
- Michel Starzynski , Sarah's four-year-old brother, is an important character, as he is Sarah's motivation to escape her captors. He is not taken to the camp, but dies in the secret room where Sarah locked him when the family was taken to Vel' d'Hiv.
- Wladyslaw&Rywka Starzynski are Sarah and Michel's parents who are both transported to Auschwitz for extermination. Starzynski is deeply marked by the events she witnesses and it seems that she would willingly allow herself to be killed until they separate her from Sarah - this is when the mother Sarah knew and remembered reemerges. M. Starzynski is willing to fight, but he is sent almost immediately from the French camp to Auschwitz where he is sent to the gas chambers.
- Jules and Geneviève Dufaure are an older couple who find Sarah and Rachel hiding in their doghouse after they escaped from the concentration camp. The couple take the two girls in to live in their house.The Dufaures try to hide the two girls from any Nazi Police, but eventually Rachel is taken away by the Nazi Police when the Dufaures must find medical help for her because she is deathly ill. Sarah tries to leave by herself to find her brother in their apartment in Paris, but the couple goes with her to then find her brother dead. Sarah stays with the couple and their family until adulthood when she moves to the United States to become a nanny.
- William Rainsferd is Sarah's only child and lives in Lucca. He does not know much about his mother's past and does not want to know much at the beginning.
- Richard Rainsferd is Sarah's husband and William's father.
- Rachel is Sarah’s friend who escapes with her. She dies of what appears to be typhus or diphtheria.
- Zoë Tezac is Julia's older, rebellious daughter. She is 11 years old at the beginning of the book and 13 at the end.
- Bertrand Tezac is Julia's husband who is, as Zoë describes him, "totally rude". He is no longer in love with Julia and has an affair with his friend Amelie.
- Amelie is Bertrand’s girlfriend. Julia recalls an event from the past when she found out her husband was having an affair with Amelie. Later in the novel, Julia suspects that Bertrand is still in love with Amelie. They receive a divorce and he admits his love for Amelie.
- Christophe is Julia’s friend in Paris. When she first moved to Paris she lived with him and Herve.
- Herve is Julia's friend in Paris.
- Guillaume is a friend of Herve and Christophe; some from his family were taken during the roundup. He helps to give Julia some information about it.
- Mamé is Bertrand's grandmother and the current owner of Sarah's former apartment. Her name is not revealed throughout the book, but she is very old and no longer lucid, suffering from Alzheimer's. She resides in a home.
- Édouard Tezac is Bertrand's father who is present when Sarah finds Michel's body in 1942. He helps Julia uncover the secrets of Sarah's life later in the novel.
- André Tezac is Mamé's husband and Édouard's father who is also present in 1942 and takes Michel's body out of the closet.
- Sarah is Julia’s younger daughter. Her last name is not revealed. As Julia and Bertrand have separated, her last name may be Jarmond or it may be Tezac.
