NO MORE EVERYDAY LIFE

Austrian Ruth Maier is a Norwegian «Anne Frank», who in 1942 was deported to Auschwitz. Thanks to her girlfriend, Gunvor Hofmo, her diaries survived, and are now published in 12 languages. But how could this happen in a country with no «Jewish problem»?

«No more everyday life» is a story without the traditional WW2 heroes, but two young women who were in love with life, the world and each other, and, as Gunvor Hofmo later expressed: «Did not know that such evil existed». Now they seem like modern human beings, who fought to take care of and protect the core of being human, but at a high price. In this documentary we follow in their footsteps, examening the ideas behind Hitler´s racial state, and how this pursued them and lead to Ruth Maier being arrested and killed. As Gunvor Hofmo wrote in a poem: «If we should ever forget: It is on their ashes we tread.» Hofmo´s fate was not to forget, but to try to turn the pain into poetry, and to preserve Ruth Maier´s writing.

At the end of World War 2, the young Norwegian poet Gunvor Hofmo waits for her girlfriend Ruth Maier to return from the concentration camps. Ruth Maier came to Norway from Austria as a Jewish refugee in 1939, and kept a diary from the age of 13. A diary which now is translated into 12 languages.  In her diary Ruth describes the gradual transitions from being a normal young girl in Vienna, to being branded as «a Jew», losing everything she had taken for granted. As a young refugee she encounters racism and exclusion in Norway as well, and a Nazi movement cultivating the idea that Norway, a country with only 2000 Jews, has «a Jewish problem».  In 1940 Norway is occupied and the Norewgian Nazi leader Vidkun Quisling comes to power. All roads appear to be closed to Ruth, who lacks a work permit, money and «connections». But then she meets the talented young working class girl Gunvor Hofmo at a voluntary labor camp. Strong feelings develop between the two: Gunvor wants to be Ruth´s knight and protector, Ruth wants Gunvor to become a great poet. They plan to escape together, but the plans are discovered and Gunvor is ordered to «stay put».  26th of November 1942 Ruth Maier and 531 other Norwegian Jews are arrested. After the war Gunvor learns that Ruth was killed only four days after her arrest. She becomes paranoid, and spends many years in a mental asylum. Fearing being being lobotomozied and locked up for life, shed flees to her friend Karen in Copenhagen, where she gets the chance to read her poems on the radio.  Ruth Maier becomes a basic, but hidden theme in Gunvor Hofmo´s poetry.  She tries in vain to get Ruth Maier´s diaries published, and they are only discovered after Gunvor´s death. Today Gunvor Hofmo is considered one of the most important Norwegian poets, and Ruth Maier´s diary is on Unesco´s world heritage list. 

In this documentary we follow in the footsteps of Ruth Maier and Gunvor Hofmo, in a form that mixes past and present, archive footage and reconstruction. It takes us from Vienna to Oslo, to  Gudbrandsdalen and Trondheim, which for a while were flattered by the idea of becoming the new capital of Hitler´s Great Germany.  It also puts the focus on the ambitions and conspiracy theories of the Norwegian Nazis, which lead to Ruth Maier´s arrest and deportation to Auschwitz.  Along the way we meet some of the people who knew them, and the Norwegian writer Jan Erik Vold, who first discovered @ruth Maier´s diaries.

Details

Release date: 2021-10-21
Type: Dokumentar
Length: 61 min

Crew

Director: Elsa Kvamme
Screenplay: Elsa Kvamme

Based on title/author: Ruth Maier’s diary, red. Jan Erik Vold
DoP: Kjell Vassdal, Nils Petter Lotherington
Editor: Marius Smit
Composer: Henning Sommerro
Sound design/mix: Bernt O. Syversen
Online: ShortCut
Photographer Vienna: Alexander Hinteregger
Photographer single takes: Rolf Larsen, Viggo Knudsen
Poster/graphic design: Erik Ferrier
Make-up/hair: Veslemøy Fosse Ree
Production assistant/editor: Helene Linnéa Kvale
Translation: Nicolai Herzog
Co-producer: Gudny Hummelvoll
Production: Alert Film