The True Meaning of Hope

 Author's note- If you wish to read this book called Sarah's Key then I warn you not to read this essay.  It ruins the ending.  Also I warn you it is pretty depressing and, in a way, painful to read.  The reason why I titled this piece The True Meaning of Hope is because Sarah, the young girl, never loses hope and sometimes that can be hard, to convince yourself that everything is alright. It is necessary that the girl has hope or else she might have just given up and died like all the rest of the Jews.  Instead she lived to tell her tale of life, death, and the true meaning of hope.


  "But daddy, Michael is still at home!" These are Sarah's last words before she is shoved onto a train and shipped off to certain death.  It had been one or two days since she had locked her brother in a closet promising to be back soon, and only then did she realize she wasn't coming back.  Her father snapped his head around to look at her. "What!" he whispered so the officers wouldn't hear him.  He sighed.  "There's nothing we can do," he continued, "we will just have to pray."  And pray they did.

  

          The girl was getting stronger.  She could lie at quickest of moments.  She could steal and beg and sprint faster than she ever thought possible.  She built an indestructible emotional bubble around herself so nobody else could hurt her.  When she ran from the camp she left all feelings behind, love was never the same, tears never dripped down her face again. Her face was melded into a constant frown.  Laughter and happiness were lost when she tore off that yellow star that cost her family their lives and buried it  deep in the ground of the past. Yet she prayed. She begged and pleaded, she would do anything to have her brother with her. 

         She missed her mother and father, but she knew they were dead.  She missed her friends, she knew she would never see them again. She missed everyone, everything she lost.  Most of all she missed her brother, and as much time as she spent praying she knew she had lost him too.

        After Sarah escaped she got on a train to Paris, her hometown, and dashed to the apartment.  She barged in the front door and what she saw was terrifying.  Another family had moved in.  There was a young boy about her age and a father.  She ran right through to her old room with the family right behind. She fumbled in her pocket for the key.  She prayed one last time and pushed the key into the lock.  As soon as she opened the door she knew she had lost.  The stench was almost unbearable and the black shadow curled up in the corner needed no explanation. She fell to her knees and sobbed.

       I almost couldn't finish this book, it was too much.  Every time this girl said her brother was still alive I felt worse and worse.  They say to tell yourself the worst so you can be ready if it comes.  Sarah needed the hope while she had it and I wonder how she could possibly even live knowing what she had done to her brother.  Turns out that 40 years later she realized just that and drove right into a tree where she went to live with her brother from then on.  All her prayers had been answered, but just a little late.