Steal a Pencil for Me (2007)

Simply A Masterpiece

hyped garbage

Great Film overall

Excellent but underrated film

Michele Ohayon's "Steal a Pencil for Me" is a moving documentary about two Dutch Holocaust survivors who carried on a love affair - largely through a surreptitious exchange of letters - while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp. Though Jack was with his wife at the time, he nevertheless fell in love with Ina, a 20-year-old woman, who immediately became the love of his life.As seen in present-day interviews (circa 2006), Jack and Ina make a delightful Old World couple, he in his 90s and she ten years younger. Ina, in particular, exudes a beauty and grace that, even in her 80s, reveal the fetching and bewitching girl who caught Jack's eye and captured his heart all those years ago. They also possess a charming sense of humor and a positive view of life and humanity that are only occasionally dimmed by the tears brought on by the memories of horrors past.Yet, while there is plenty of footage chronicling those horrors, the focus of the film is on showing how beauty and love were able to flourish even in mankind's darkest hour. It's well worth seeing.

A believable and deeply touching story of an unimaginable romance that happened in Holland in World War II and bloomed in the horrible camps at Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen. Two Dutch Jews, Jaap Polak and Ina Soep, did what young lovers do, in a sadly minimum way while they endured the terrors of the camps and struggled to stay alive. Their final escape from Bergen-Belsen, on separate trains bound in opposite directions, kept them apart only for a few desperate months. In this deliberately understated film, they dance at their 60th wedding anniversary and recount only as much of their experience as we would want—they maintain some privacy, while celebrating their love over so many years. The best moments for me were in a scene with school children on a family outing at a WWII camp location that remains as a memorial to the dead. Jaap talks plainly to the kids who stand listening, mutely attentive to the old man and perhaps unable to fully grasp the meaning of his words. A mother uses the moment to remind her children that "this man is Jewish, but he is no different from us." Jaap and Ina are old, and they are Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, and they are happy now. I don't want to be different from them. Read more on my blog: Barley Literate by Rick

Wat leuk is a Dutch expression that translated to "how wonderful," or precisely "how nice."I resonated to this tender, charming documentary of two Jewish young adults, living and growing up in Amsterdam, who suffered the trials of a transit camp and a concentration camp, surviving on their love letters. Hope is a precious commodity in times of utter despair, and these two admirable survivors exhibit a love of life and a depth of understanding that transcends the pain and sorrow of the Holocaust.I am certain this film will fill me up with possibilities as few documentaries or films of this era can provide.I felt honoured they permitted the making of their story to share with us all.

The stars of this film, and they really are stars, met in Amsterdam as Hitler's rampage got under way. Miraculously they were transported to the same concentration camps not once but twice. Despite the fact that he was married to another woman Jaap courted the younger Ina and their love and their luck somehow delivered them from an evil so appalling that it is still impossible to grasp. Every smile from these two wonderful people and every laugh they have together reminded me of Steinbeck's comment in East Of Eden: "It occurs to me that evil must constantly re-spawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal." Certainly Jaap & Ina show us that goodness still walks amongst us in this world but the terror of what they went through in '43,'44 & '45 reminds us that all it takes is one man with a cold-heart and a clever tongue for evil to be reborn.