Books so often raise questions that can fill the empty spaces in a day. One novel that I have just finished and that has left me with much to ponder is Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.

It is a book that almost did not see the light of day. The author, a Russian Jew who fled the Bolsheviks and who had long lived in France, was caught up in the trauma of the Nazi occupation of France. Her reputation as a successful author did not save her from being arrested and sent to Auschwitz where she died in 1942. Her very young children remembered her writing in tiny handwriting in a large notebook. They saved that notebook, thinking it was her memoirs. Some fifty years later they began to decipher it, only to discover it was a novel dealing with World War II.

It is an incredible human drama that begins with the flight of assorted refugees from Paris. They were of different levels of society: a very wealthy family, two middle-class workers ordered to rejoin their bank staff in Tours (get there as best you can), a totally self-centered writer, a selfish clergyman in charge of the evacuation of a reform school... The human comedy heads off as best it can into the chaos of war.

The ensuing adventures led to thinking on several levels. First, in a time of complete confusion, each had to decide what was worth taking and what could be left behind for the invader. The results were bizarre. But I wondered what I might have done in similar circumstances.

Secondly, as the refugees inundated the villages along their way, the best and the worst of human reactions are to be found. However, most provocative of all, are the chapters with the occupation of a small village by a Nazi regiment. The uneasy settling into roles of master and conquered lead to some profound human interactions, not the least of which is the discovery that the enemy is also human and could, under some circumstances, have been a friend or perhaps a lover.

I am left with a feeling of incredible sadness that the author could write with such humanity of the conquerors of her adopted country, she who would then die at their hands before she finished her work.

Perhaps this book has come to light now so that we might ask again: who is the enemy? Is it ourselves?

A haunting line echoes in my mind from this human drama. The author says of one of her characters: "He didn't pity the suffering of others, he simply didn't see them: he only saw himself."

May it not be said of us.