Well. I’ve been in Paris for almost two weeks now. Two weeks I’ve been trudging throughout the city, avoiding the ruins of bombed buildings and trying not to look at them. I think that if I do I’ll start to cry. I keep thinking that this is what London must be beginning to look like, this desolate crumbling landscape and the poor, homeless souls wandering about snowy streets trying to find money or food. The face of a French stranger transforms into the face of a friend from Oxford before my eyes, and I feel the cold in their bones and the hopelessness in their hearts. And then I have to look away. Bloody hell, I thought I could do this. I wasn’t prepared; I wasn’t expecting to see what I’m seeing. I knew there would be destruction. I knew there would be depression and I certainly knew there would be death. I just didn’t know it would look like this.

Despite the fact that the city is devastated, I am falling in love with Paris. Those same luckless souls that are wandering the streets are the people that I’m trying to represent in my writing. They are the bartenders who serve me alcohol, they are the baker that I saw give away a loaf of bread to a woman who could not afford it, they are the students, the mothers, the children, the wives and sisters of those who stood up and fought against the Germans, and now they are the oppressed and poor. They are my mother, my father, my brother, my friends, and they are me. Even though they’re going through Hell and back, these are some of the most kind-hearted people I have ever met. Most of them don’t want to talk to me about the Germans. Most of them are scared. I don’t think any less of them for this. I wouldn’t want to put my loved ones in danger either, especially after already having suffered so much loss.

The Germans, when they do decide they want to talk to me (which is not very often), they talk of rebuilding and change and a bright, new future. They compare this to a coming spring awakening. There’s hope in their voices, and they don’t acknowledge the depression of the city. It’s difficult for me to tell if the Germans are saying this to get rid of me and to cover up their atrocities of if they really believe the tripe they’re spouting. With the officers, I believe it’s the former. But the younger, more naïve soldiers are so disciplined and so fervent with their answers... it’s as if they’re brainwashed. I wouldn’t doubt that as a possibility. It would make sense, and most of the lowest ranking soldiers are young and moldable. I wish I could get something else from them besides this automatic false hope of an answer, but that’s where the French citizens come in. They’re giving me the truth.

I just wish there was something I could do. Some way I could help. I already pay extra for drinks and food just to help out the people, but if I keep that up I’ll soon be poor as well and times are tough here and at home. I’ve heard whispers of a resistance during my solitary times at Le Passant, but I shouldn’t get involved with that. On principle, I shouldn’t. But my conscience is telling me otherwise.