We abhor as a nation, as individuals, the history of the Nazi party. We cringe at the word Holocaust, divert our thinking to Schindler's List, to the brave soldiers who liberated captives, the good that came from atrocity: Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Corrie Tenboom's The Hiding Place; we feel relief that it was Germany's problem, not ours and that it could never, ever happen in America. I don't think it ever could.
Then we get a little glimpse into Not in America.
Thanks to archival researcher Rich Rosenberg and producer/editor Marshall Curry's diligence, we witness a 1939 Madison Square Garden gathering of 20,000 people celebrating the American Nazi party. It is a shocking revelation of hate in America. And who stands at the front of the gathering? A bigger than life portrait of our revered George Washington. The garden is filled with American flags, the pledge of allegiance begins the evening. Our senses are thrown at pledge's end when the Nazi salute is shared by 20,000 people.
Where am I?
We remind ourselves that we are indeed in the United States of America.
How could this have happened?
It happened because the very things we value so highly, the freedom of speech, the right to gather and discourse, even if it's hate filled rhetoric, we will not trample on the rights of people to do so.
Then what is required?
The use of freedom of speech to counteract evil dogma.
And so a Mr. Greenbaum, a Jewish plumber, present that night to protest the gathering, rushes the stage. He is attacked, hit, pummeled--receives a broken nose, but he must be heard. He's thrown off the stage, saved by the New York City police, who fine him $25 for civil disobedience. A small price to pay for the right to speak up and against the American Nazi Party.
For Mr. Fritz Kunz, hater, miserable man, there is no penalty. His rights are preserved.
However, so are those of the Internal Revenue Service who find Kunz guilty of an assortment of money violations including a $1500 embezzlement from the Nazi party. But Mr. Kunz's biggest silencer is the Nazi party itself. When the true intentions and destruction of the Nazi party are revealed, after the Nuremberg Trials, no one wants to be a Nazi.
anighttatthegarden.com
Then we get a little glimpse into Not in America.
Thanks to archival researcher Rich Rosenberg and producer/editor Marshall Curry's diligence, we witness a 1939 Madison Square Garden gathering of 20,000 people celebrating the American Nazi party. It is a shocking revelation of hate in America. And who stands at the front of the gathering? A bigger than life portrait of our revered George Washington. The garden is filled with American flags, the pledge of allegiance begins the evening. Our senses are thrown at pledge's end when the Nazi salute is shared by 20,000 people.
Where am I?
We remind ourselves that we are indeed in the United States of America.
How could this have happened?
It happened because the very things we value so highly, the freedom of speech, the right to gather and discourse, even if it's hate filled rhetoric, we will not trample on the rights of people to do so.
Then what is required?
The use of freedom of speech to counteract evil dogma.
And so a Mr. Greenbaum, a Jewish plumber, present that night to protest the gathering, rushes the stage. He is attacked, hit, pummeled--receives a broken nose, but he must be heard. He's thrown off the stage, saved by the New York City police, who fine him $25 for civil disobedience. A small price to pay for the right to speak up and against the American Nazi Party.
For Mr. Fritz Kunz, hater, miserable man, there is no penalty. His rights are preserved.
However, so are those of the Internal Revenue Service who find Kunz guilty of an assortment of money violations including a $1500 embezzlement from the Nazi party. But Mr. Kunz's biggest silencer is the Nazi party itself. When the true intentions and destruction of the Nazi party are revealed, after the Nuremberg Trials, no one wants to be a Nazi.
anighttatthegarden.com
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