In 1939, 20,000 Americans held a pro-Nazi rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden — an event largely forgotten from American history. A Night at the Garden, directed and edited by Marshall Curry, is meticulously crafted from archival fragments filmed that night. It transports audiences into this disturbing gathering and sheds light on the enduring power of demagoguery and antisemitism.

Nominated for Best Documentary Short at the 91st Academy Awards®, POV Shorts: A Night at the Garden serves as a stark reminder of one of history’s darker chapters. This documentary is essential viewing and is available to stream free online and the PBS App. Don't miss its release on the PBS YouTube channel on January 23rd.

The 1939 event at Madison Square Garden was billed as a “Pro-American Rally." Images of George Washington hung next to swastikas and speakers railed against the “Jewish controlled media” and called for a return to a racially “pure” America. The keynote speaker was Fritz Kuhn, head of the German American Bund. Directed by Peter Yost, Nazi Town, USA tells the largely unknown story of the Bund, which had scores of chapters in suburbs and big cities across the country and represented what many believe was a real threat of fascist subversion in the United States. The Bund held joint rallies with the Ku Klux Klan and ran dozens of summer camps for children centered around Nazi ideology and imagery. Its melding of patriotic values with virulent anti-Semitism raised thorny issues that we continue to wrestle with today.

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: Nazi Town, USA premieres on January 23rd and will be streaming free through February 22nd, on all PBS platforms, including pbs.org and the PBS App.