Sad News

This evening I received the following email:


"Dear Friends,

It is with great sadness and tenderness that we have the difficult task of announcing the death of our dear mother, Ina Polak, yesterday evening at White Plains Hospital in  New York. She passed very peacefully after a brief illness. It is a shock for all of us, but know that Jack is ok and has received the news as well as possible. The funeral will be tomorrow Friday  May 16 at 11:30 pm at Sharrei Tikvah Synagogue at 46 Fox Meadow Road, Scarsdale NY  914-472-2013.

and she will be buried after the service at Mt Hope Cemetary on Saw Mill River Road in Hastings On Hudson. Donations may be made to The Anne Frank Center USA  44 Park Place New York, NY. I will be checking her emails tonight and in the coming day and will try to return each of your emails individually but be patient with me.

With love,

Margrit, Tony and Fred Polak

Polak, Catharina (Ina) Soep, 91, of Eastchester,  New York, passed away peacefully on May 14, 2014.

Devoted wife of Jack for 68 years, loving mother of Fred (Carrie), Tony (Amy), and Margrit (Harvey), grandmother to Josh (Sarah), Ann (Jordan), Jamie (Abbie), Emily and Sofi, great grandmother of seven. Born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on January 3, 1923 to Abraham and Toni, Holocaust survivor of transit camp Westerbork, where she met her beloved husband Jack, and concentration camp Bergen Belsen. Their love story is memorialized in the book and award winning documentary Steal a Pencil For Me. Avid  New York Times reader, theatre and movie goer, Ina led a vibrant and fullfilling life til the end. She will be remembered for her extraordinary beauty and her loving spirit. She called her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren 'her best revenge against The Holocaust'  Services today at Congregation Shaari Tikvah in Scarsdale at 11:30 Am. Donations should be made to Anne Frank Center USA."

The woman above, Ina (Soep) Polak, touched my life in a lovely and unexpected way.  On 12/9/08, I received an unexpected email from her because she had read a poem I had written based on a documentary about her and her husband and posted on this blog some time before that. You can find it by looking under November 2008 and more about it under December 2008.  The documentary is called "Steal a Pencil for Me" and my poem is called "Ina and Jaap"  She was made aware of my poem's existence by the woman who had directed the documentary about the love story between her (Ina) and her husband, Jaap "Jack" Polak.  I found the documentary touching and it inspired me to write the poem.  

I suppose the best way that I can remember her is to promote their story and the inspiration it gave me.