Klaus Härö Describes the Deportation of Jews from Finland in ‘Never Alone’

Sometimes films highlight little-known events in their own country, ultimately facilitating a re-evaluation of their country’s history. Finnish director Klaus Härö‘Never Alone’ is preparing to be such a movie. The film follows the deportation of eight Austrian Jewish refugees from Finland by the Gestapo during World War II, and the work of Abraham Stiller, a prominent member of the Helsinki Jewish community who attempts to prevent this from happening.

Despite Finland’s uneasy alliance with Nazi Germany in the early years of the war, Finland’s Jewish citizens had the protection of their government, although some Finnish officials chose to comply with Gestapo demands to deport them all.

This is the first time the producer has tackled this issue cinematically. Ilkka Matila It was a story too painful for the Finnish state and the entire society to talk about publicly. Moreover, Matila points out that this is a narrative with tremendous contemporary resonance. “The issues discussed today are the same as in the movie: Who are these people and why should we help them?”

The Finnish-Estonian-Swedish-Germany-Austrian production was written by Härö from a story he wrote together with his long-time collaborator, screenwriter Jimmy Karlsson. It is based on the free book “Uncle Stiller” by Finnish journalist Rony Smolar and real events. He is a sales representative for The Playmaker based in Munich.

Interiors were shot in Tallinn before the production returned to Helsinki.

The first eight days of shooting took place in a black box studio in Estonia, where talented production designer Jaagup Roomet created Abraham and Vera Stiller’s comfortable Helsinki home in exquisite period detail. The couple is played by Ville Virtanen (internationally known for the crime series “Bordertown”) and Nina Hukkinen. The cinematographer was Robert Nordström, who shot Härö’s previous film, “My Sailor, My Love.”

Tall, serious, Virtanen projects an impressive gravitas and confidence befitting Stiller, who believes Helsinki’s 2,000-strong Jewish community and his connections among the local bourgeoisie and government officials will save the day. The actor, who first met Härö while performing in a film school project years ago, states that one of the challenging aspects of his role was that he had to speak Finnish, Swedish, German, Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian.

Matila half-jokingly refers to Härö, who hails from Finland’s Swedish-speaking minority, as the Finnish Steven Spielberg. It’s not a bad comparison. Like Spielberg, Härö is a man of faith (albeit Christian) and is known for his ability to combine important topics with well-crafted, impeccably crafted dramas that entertain and educate, as well as soaring emotional moments that honestly provoke tears.

Härö dealt with painful periods in the history of Finland and Sweden, respectively, in his films such as “Mother of Mine” (2005) and “The New Man” (2007). Meanwhile, Golden Globe-nominated “The Fencer” (2015) drew on the life of legendary Estonian fencing master Endel Nelis, creating a period piece that unfolds under the cloud of suspicion and paranoia fueled by the post-war Soviet occupation.

Härö says his strong Christian faith drew him to Stiller’s story, which has been his passion project for many years. He recalls that after “Mother of Mine” was released, he and Matila talked about what their dream project would be, and to mutual surprise, they both said it would be something about Jewish exiles.

Why that topic? Härö recalls learning about the Holocaust in middle school as a formative experience; Matila, however, remembers a book about deportees and their fate that came out in the 1970s and shook Finnish society.

It took Härö some time to find the key to telling the story, but he found it emerged naturally through the focus on Stiller and his relationship with the young Austrian-Jewish couple Georg and Janka Kollman (Austrian actors Rony Herman and Naemi Latzer). The villain of the piece is Arno Anthoni, the openly anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi director of the Finnish State Police.