Steal a Pencil for Me

Steal a Pencil for Me is a competent, unadventurous documentary in the service of a great story: the epistolary concentration-camp romance of Jack and Ina Polak, young Dutch Jews who survived the horrors of Bergen-Belsen (where Anne Frank died) to marry and enjoy 60 years of companionship. Though Jack was already wed when they met—his first wife was at the camp too—he felt an immediate connection with Ina. Their cross-camp correspondence records both the depredations of their daily life and the fragile flame of love.