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PEOPLE & ARTS Saturday 23 February 2019

This Feb. 20,1939 file photo shows Fritz Kuhn, national leader of
the Bund, in the full uniform of a Storm Trooper, as he speaks
from the rostrum at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Associated Press
Documentary about 1939 Nazi

rally in New York up for Oscar

By KAREN MATTHEWS crimes making up almost
Associated Press two-thirds of the total of 55.
NEW YORK (AP) — A crowd In “A Night at the Garden,”
of 20,000 gives the Nazi mounted police officers
salute as swastikas flank a hold back protesters out-
giant portrait of George side the Garden, about a
Washington. mile north of the arena’s
Unimaginable to most present-day location and
Americans, the pro-Hitler where the marquee adver-
rally that took place 80 tises “Pro American Rally”
years ago this week in- along with a New York
side New York’s Madison Rangers hockey game the
Square Garden is the sub- following night.
ject of a short documen- Inside, people in suits and
tary that’s up for an Oscar. dresses cheer as Kuhn calls
The seven-minute film for “gentile-controlled la-
shows Fritz Kuhn, the leader bor unions, free from Jew-
of the pro-Nazi German ish Moscow-directed domi-
American Bund, decry- nation.” A protester rushes
ing “the Jewish-controlled the stage and is tackled
press” and demanding “a and beaten by uniformed
socially just, white, gentile- Bund troops.
ruled United States.” Curry said he considered
Documentary filmmaker using a narrator but “ulti-
Marshall Curry said that mately almost on a whim
after learning about the I edited it together as if it
1939 Bund rally, which he were a verite documenta-
could barely believe had ry where you dropped the
happened, he asked a re- audience into this rally and
searcher friend to help him you had to figure out what
locate archival footage of was going on. I found that
the Feb. 20, 1939, event. it was more compelling
“Once he pulled it all that way.”
together and I saw it, I Daniel Greene, a North-
thought it was very sur- western University historian
real and frightening, and who curated an exhibit at
I wanted to find a way to the U.S. Holocaust Museum
make something of it and on Americans’ response
share it with the world,” to the Holocaust, said the
Curry said. Madison Square Garden
Curry sees parallels to 2019, rally was one of the most
when Republican Presi- important events in the
dent Donald Trump calls relatively short life of the
news organizations en- German American Bund,
emies of the people and which aimed to build sup-
anti-Jewish attacks are in- port for a fascist America.
creasing. The anniversary “You have about 20,000
of the rally comes as New people inside, and some
York police report a 72 people estimate that there
percent increase in hate were about 100,000 pro- linda.reijnders@cspnv.com
crimes in the city over the testers on the street out-
past year, with anti-Semitic side,” Greene said.q