Review of "Ink to Reel™ Presents Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir" (Video Documentary) Presented by Ink to Reel™, Produced by Studio Story Monster®

Score: 92+/100 (9.2+ out of 10)

Presented by Ink to Reel™ | Produced by Studio Story Monster®
Directed by Linda F. Radke | Narrated by Shulamit Reinharz | Produced by Julianne (Black) DiBlasi
Camera Operator: Ellen Golub | Proofreader: Deb Greenberg
Based on the book Hiding in Holland by Shulamit Reinharz and Max Rothschild
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Ink to Reel™ Presents Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir is an impactful and eye-opening Holocaust documentary presented by Ink to Reel™ and produced by Studio Story Monster®! It is narrated by Shulamit Reinharz, the author of the book on which this documentary is based around: Hiding in Holland.

Story Monsters always makes good stuff, and this is no exception. We find it incredible how diverse and far-reaching the Story Monsters brand has become: children's books, audiobooks (with their own incredible narration team), a magazine/catalog, music, plays, and now even documentaries! This brand is unstoppable! What can't they do?

This documentary and book actually demonstrate the diverse and varied range of Story Monsters, serving as an integrated multimedia storytelling & educational project.

This documentary is broken up into five sections: a short introduction and four volumes that run between one minute to five minutes in length.

But don't let the short length of this documentary fool you, a lot is said and a lot is shared in that brief amount of time. This documentary serves both an educational purpose as well as a cathartic one—allowing decades of pain, trauma, and rich experiences to be poured out and released for the world to see, recognize, and learn from. It also wets the viewer's appetite to read, hear, and learn more.

As previously alluded to, this documentary serves as the companion piece to Hiding in Holland by Shulamit Reinharz, a book directly based on the words and experiences of Reinharz's father, Max Rothschild, a Holocaust survivor.

Rothschild’s experiences, as captured both in the memoir and in this film, are extraordinary, harrowing, captivating, and inspiring—not only for the sheer danger he faced, but for the resilience and moral clarity he maintained throughout. Forced to live in hiding for over three years, Max moved between a haystack, a brothel, a home where he was unwelcome, the care of a loving couple, and finally isolation with his future wife Ilse. At every step, he had to suppress his voice, his identity, even his presence. Yet what emerges from his writings—and from Reinharz’s powerful narration—is not just a tale of survival, but of resistance. Rothschild was not a passive victim of the Holocaust. He was a resistor, a thinker, and a witness. He wrote, he dreamed, and he strategized. And by sharing his story in his own words, this documentary ensures that he is not only remembered, but heard.

We really loved and appreciated the book, Hiding in Holland. It gripped us in a way that Holocaust memoirs are known to do. What these people went through cannot be understated, and it should never be diminished, disregarded, or forgotten.

Even those who survived with their lives often lost friends, family, and loved ones, or suffered the emotional, physical, and psychological trauma afterward. It's heartbreaking.

And yet... it's something the world needs to know about and recognize. History cannot be allowed to repeat itself. We have to learn from the past so we don't repeat it.

In this collaboration between daughter and scholar Shulamit Reinharz and the ghostly but powerful presence of her father, Max, history breathes through memory, paper, and film. This isn't just a survivor story. It’s a resistor’s story—one that insists hiding was not submission, but survival as an act of rebellion.

To think that this whole project started with a broken heater in a snowy New Jersey basement which led Reinharz to discovering ten forgotten boxes filled with wartime writings. Diaries, letters, essays—scribbled in German, Dutch, Hebrew, and French. To think that Max Rothschild initially dismissed these as "nothing," when they were anything but.

It's like discovering a time machine in your basement—a link to a past that meant so much to so many, yet was kept locked away for so long. Repressed.

Via this book and documentary, Reinharz demonstrates how removing the band-aid can lead to cathartic healing that just isn't possible when dark things and secrets are left tucked away.

At the same time, they also demonstrate how there's a time and a place for these things to come out. It needs to be handled with tact, care, and the utmost of sensitivity.

The first video in the series, Hiding in Holland: An Introduction by the Author, sets the emotional and intellectual tone for the entire project. In this short but powerful segment, Reinharz recounts the incredible discovery of her father’s wartime writings—forgotten boxes of diaries, letters, and reflections buried in the family basement. With quiet awe and deep purpose, Reinharz explains how those materials, once dismissed by her father as unimportant, became the foundation of a memoir and later this documentary. The video introduces viewers to both Max Rothschild’s legacy and Reinharz’s mission: to preserve and share a story that might otherwise have been lost. It frames the Holocaust not only as history, but as memory—and memory as an act of resistance.

Volume One, The Triangle of Hiding, is the heart of the documentary and introduces a powerful framework for understanding Holocaust survival. Reinharz narrates how her father, Max Rothschild, came to realize—thanks to his friend Shushu—that escape from Nazi-occupied Holland was no longer realistic and that hiding had become the only option.

Reinharz presents hiding as a moral triangle made up of three roles: the hider (the Jewish person in danger), the rescuer (often non-Jewish individuals who risked everything to protect them), and the perpetrator (those actively seeking their capture and death). This framework is brought to life through Max’s harrowing experiences—living for years in silence, darkness, and uncertainty across multiple hiding places. The film doesn’t just inform—it invites viewers to consider the courage, trust, and terror built into every corner of that triangle.

Volume Two, I Want You to Survive, takes a more intimate and emotional turn as it explores Max Rothschild’s childhood and the formative experiences that gave him the strength to endure the Holocaust. Through Reinharz’s narration, we learn about the early loss of Max’s mother and younger brother, the rise of antisemitism in his hometown of Gunzenhausen, and the loving foundation his family provided despite those dark times. One of the most moving moments in this segment is Max’s recollection of his mother’s final words to him: “I want you to survive.” That promise—made when he was just a boy—would guide his choices for the rest of his life. The video also highlights Max’s intellectual and spiritual development: his love of piano, Hebrew poetry, Zionist philosophy, and the profound impact of joining the Habonim youth group, where he found purpose, identity, and the young woman who would later become his wife. This volume reveals that Max’s resistance didn’t begin in hiding—it began in childhood, in the choice to live with dignity, hope, and pride even when surrounded by hate.

Volume Three, Righteous Gentiles, is a brief but powerful tribute to the non-Jewish individuals—particularly Dutch Christians—who risked their lives to hide Jews during the Holocaust. Narrated by Shulamit Reinharz, the segment highlights that while many in the Netherlands betrayed their Jewish neighbors, there were also brave souls like Niek and Aag Schouten who chose courage over compliance. These “righteous among the nations,” later honored by Yad Vashem, represent the moral opposite of the perpetrators and bystanders. In Max Rothschild’s case, their protection was the difference between life and death. This volume doesn’t glorify the Dutch as a whole—it carefully distinguishes between the country’s overall complicity and the extraordinary bravery of a few. In doing so, Righteous Gentiles asks viewers to reflect on what it means to stand up for others in the face of overwhelming danger—and reminds us that even in the darkest times, acts of goodness endured.

Volume Four, Growing Up During the Nazi Rise to Power, provides the emotional and historical foundation for Max Rothschild’s later resistance. This segment explores his childhood in the Bavarian town of Gunzenhausen—a place both beautiful and cruel. As narrated by Shulamit Reinharz, we learn that Max was raised in a deeply rooted Jewish home, full of learning, tradition, and love. But as Nazism gained momentum, that safety evaporated. He was forced to endure antisemitic school curriculums, exclusion from public life, and public humiliation during Nazi parades and ceremonies. Despite this, Max’s early exposure to Hebrew study and Jewish community laid the groundwork for strength and identity. By the time he moved to Munich as a teenager, he had already chosen resistance in the form of Zionist pride, joining the youth group Habonim and turning toward action and purpose. This volume powerfully illustrates that Max’s resistance didn’t begin with hiding—it began with learning, belonging, and refusing to be erased, even as a child.

This documentary's purpose is so noble and admirable that it's difficult to say anything critical or bad about it. We will say that this probably isn't what most people think of when they think of a "documentary." This is actually more like an interview about a book.

First of all, it's incredibly short (some volumes being only about a minute long), and that can come across as sparse to some viewers. It's also lacking things like music, cuts, edits, and other perspectives (other than the narrator, Reinharz). But one thing that really could've elevated this documentary is archival footage or even photos. It seems a bit static and stagnant with just the narrator speaking, as interesting and well-spoken as she is. Public domain footage of the invasion/fall of the Netherlands and perhaps its liberation could've been used. Maybe there are some videos of Rothschild after World War II? Living his life? Getting married? How powerful would that footage be to show? Showing that evil hasn't conquered and hasn't won.

Update: Upon further review, some photos were used like in the first minute of Volume 2 showing Rothschild & his mother. We would've loved to have seen more images like that. We actually found a separate documentary that contained more images like this, so it's not like they don't exist.

How cool would it have been to cut away to the photos and documents laid out on a nice mahogany desk, just having the camera pan over them like some hidden things a detective found?

Another thing that could've elevated this documentary is a bit more organization and clarity as far as the different volumes or parts. Yes, we could ask the producer about things, but it's better that we put ourselves in the shoes of the everyday viewer or consumer of this media—someone just surfing YouTube. It's the best way to provide constructive criticism for future improvements.

There's a Volume One, but there's also an introduction. So is the introduction "Volume Zero"? We were also under the impression that this whole project was called "The Triangle of Hiding" or "The Triangle of Hiding: Volume 1" (as if this was the first of many upcoming Holocaust documentaries in a broader series, the first one featuring Reinharz). However, we later realized that "The Triangle of Hiding" is only the first volume/part of this documentary, which actually shares the same name as the book (somewhat confusingly). We were going to try to simplify things by referring to the "Volumes" as "Parts," but even that got confusing because—again— we were under the impression that this was like "Episode One" of a larger series with each "episode" having multiple "volumes." Can you see how that can be confusing to just someone strolling through the internet trying to figure out what this documentary is and how it's supposed to be structured and organized?

Also somewhat confusingly, the series was published on two separate YouTube channels: Ink to Reel & Book Street Press. Compounding this confusion, Volume Three is actually missing from the Ink to Reel YouTube channel and is only viewable via the Book Street Press YouTube channel (at the time of this writing).

However, for all its minor faults, this is definitely something admirable that can be built upon.

Learn more HERE!