I Will Never Refuse in Spoken Words (Writing for English Class)

      Many refer to it as the day France fell; I refer to it as the day hell executed its will on my homeland. It is not a mere fall in which one can get back on its feet in a matter of seconds, it’s a fall in which one’s bones are shattered at contact with the concrete floor.  This was an invasion of our safe haven, and now we are within the reach of the savage inferno that has unleashed throughout Europe. The chains held within the hands of Hitler’s army have slashed the jugulars of the innocent, waiving a brutal flag threaded with blood. We live in fear, fear of the reaction of the Nazis at our refusal to bathe in the blood of the innocent, fear of being strangled slowly with these chains until we can no longer breathe in the putrid air. And so, I will never refuse in spoken words, and neither will my children. These perceptions only exist in my mind, for as long as they’re not spoken, they don’t exist in the real world.

  Yet this real world feels more like a purgatory to me. We are all trapped within the ductless, airtight walls of Hitler’s army.  And every time our brothers and sisters are taken away at gunpoint, it feels like the ceilings collapse over us, revealing the darkness in what is beyond these four walls.  We are all one, one for all and all for one. But these chains have classified us into two distinct groups and penetrated the necks of one.  They pay for their believes, yet when I see them, they are people whose hearts beat as fast as mine, and their children are as gullible to the world as my children are. There is not a day where one can live with serenity, for there is always the fear of being victims of bombings or getting caught up in a day like July 16, 1942 when many Jews were taken away to be exterminated like rodents. This hell my children and I live in is indescribable, for as a family we are broken ever since the day that Jean Pierre was forced to work for Germany on the basis of terror. No force was able to stop this, for it was never opposed in spoken language. As of today my children and I struggle along the days, tolerating the hunger we feel and the censorship placed upon us like heavy shackles.

       The day France fell was the day France slowly began to die. For this invasion was like cancer. It multiplied up to a point of mortality. They usurped our government, hanging those vile flags that represented glory to them over the walls of our city.  They say our government isn’t dead, that it is under the hands of Philippe Petain, but we all know that this is not true. All hope is dead, freedom is dead. This government of ours is just a puppet; it no longer lives nor breathes freedom. These repugnant monsters have destroyed not only our government, but our land and unity.  The day France fell was the day we fell onto the verge of death. That day feels like it was so long ago. Today we are no longer living on the verge of death, we’re way past that, we live within this inferno where only the flames can be heard and nothing else.