A 60-year love story

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Love letters written during the Holocaust with stolen pencil stubs were the inspiration for the documentary Steal a Pencil for Me, which will air this month on the PBS show Independent Lens.

In June 1943, when Jack (Jaap) Polack and his flirtatious wife, Manja, attended a friend's birthday party, the couple was already having marital troubles. Living in Nazi-occupied Holland, they were planning to divorce after the war. It was in this state of mind that Jack met Ina Soep. For him, it was love at first sight. Ina, the daughter of a diamond manufacturer, wasn't looking to marry an accountant, yet her first thought when she saw Jack and Manja was that they didn't belong together.

Steal a Pencil for Me masterfully tells the story of how Jack and Ina came to be married. It flits between past and present with ease under the direction of award-winning director and producer Michèle Ohayon.

Ohayon was born in Casablanca, Morocco, and raised in Israel. She graduated from Tel Aviv University with a degree in film and television and moved to Los Angeles in 1987. On the documentary's website, Ohayon says about making Steal a Pencil for Me, "Growing up in Israel, I was inundated with images and stories from the Holocaust. It was everywhere – at school, in our books, our parents' friends' [life stories], the government, the museums and the memorials. I thought I knew all about it and didn't want to hear any more.

"When my friend Margrit told me that she was the daughter of survivors and that I should read her parents' collection of love letters from the camps, my interest was piqued. Love in the Holocaust?

"The letters blew me away," Ohayon continues. "The daily, precise details of struggling to keep one's dignity, the willpower that it took to get up in the morning and face the grim reality of their existence, relying on slivers of hope for the future – all were deeply moving. The notion that even under these horrendous circumstances there was still love, jealousy and passion – basic emotions that proved the human spirit cannot be easily broken, that the power of love is measurable in life and in death."

Six months after they first met, Jack, Manja and Ina were brought together again at Westerbork, a Nazi transit camp in Holland. Despite being married, Jack courted Ina; in the open at first, then, when Manja objected, through letters. Even after the three were taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1944, Jack continued writing to Ina. She credits his love with her survival.

In Steal a Pencil for Me, both Ina and Jack speak candidly about this time in their lives. These interviews, plus others, as well as archival footage, tell a compelling story without being overly sentimental and without diminishing the horror of the Holocaust. Ina speaks tearfully about losing her teenage love and her brother. Jack's sister, Betty, tells of how she tried to warn her family, including Jack, that the Nazis would kill them – she failed to convince them, but went into hiding and joined the resistance herself.

On the film's website, there is a February 2009 update on a few of the people in Steal a Pencil for Me:

"Jack Polack celebrated his 95th birthday with his wife and his extended family in 2008. His sister, Betty, turned 90 in April 2008. Ina, Jack and Betty travel with the film to various screenings, speaking with the audiences and inspiring young people and adults to 'never be a bystander in life.' They urge their audiences to take action when they see injustice taking place."

At the time of filming, Jack and Ina had been married 60 years. They had three children, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

For more information, visit www.pbs.org/independentlens/stealapencilforme. The film will be on television at 10 p.m. PST, Tuesday, May 26, on Channel 27 (KCTS from Seattle).

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