Steal a Pencil for Me

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.