[OOPS]Obama admits reference to Auschwitz was wrong

In trying to get Jewish Votes...he lies about his uncle liberating the Aushcwitz camp. Unfortunately for him, history doesn't lie.

http://www.reuters.com/article/topN...?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Obama admits reference to Auschwitz was wrong
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama admitted on Tuesday he was wrong to say his uncle helped liberate the Nazis' Auschwitz concentration camp after Republicans said Soviet troops freed the camp.

Obama's campaign said the candidate meant to say that his great-uncle, Charlie Payne, had helped liberate a part of the Buchenwald camp, not Auschwitz.

"Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

Burton said in the statement that Obama's great uncle served in the 89th Infantry Division that entered Germany in 1945 and on April 4 overran Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Obama had made the Auschwitz reference in a Memorial Day speech on Monday.

More than 1 million people, most of them Jews, were killed at Auschwitz, an extermination camp in Poland. Buchenwald in Germany was mainly a forced labor camp, where some 56,000 people are believed to have died.

"I had an uncle who was ... part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps," Obama said.

"And the story in our family was is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn't leave the house for six months," he said.

The Republican National Committee quickly pointed out that the Red Army had liberated Auschwitz in 1945, not American forces.

 

I guess it's a non-story for a Harvard Grad to mistake his history and geography.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/5/27/1719/01583

So the question was about his grandfather, but his answer included details about the military service of both his grandfather and uncle, and it was his uncle that he said helped liberate Auschwitz.

Now check out what he said in a speech in West Virginia in April: [Historic Obama speech Charleston Gazette (West Virginia) April 8, 2008, Tuesday, Lexis.com]

"My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.

So, in April Obama said his grandfather heard stories from American soldiers who were the first to enter Auschwitz and Treblinka. Yesterday, he said an uncle of his helped liberate Auschwitz.

Obama does have a great-uncle and a great-great uncle as well as a grandfather from Indiana. Remember when he campaigned in Indiana and he took the press to the family homestead?

On Saturday, Obama made his first visit to an Indiana house built by a great-great-great-grandfather for a potluck dinner with neighbors. Obama's local patrimony was recently uncovered by campaign researchers, an aide said, and the candidate was uncharacteristically short on words about it. more stories like this
"Look at this: the Dunham, uh . . ." he said, bounding off his bus toward the white clapboard house. After a long silence, he described it as a homestead.

From the Indianapolis Star, April 6, 2008:

One of his great-uncles, William Riley Dunham, was even a member of the state legislature. And, yes, he was a Democrat. The Dunhams moved to Indiana in the 1840s when the area was "nothing but wilderness and swamp," according to Carolyn Etchison, director of the Heritage Center at the Tipton County Historical Society. Obama's mom has Tipton County ties; Dunham family came to Indiana in 1840s; some moved to Kansas.

Of course, both Obama's great-uncle and his grandfather could have served in Patton's army. But neither would have heard stories about liberating Auschwitz from their fellow soldiers, let alone been a part of it.

The WaPo blog cuts Obama no slack over the error:

Granted, it is getting late in the campaign. The candidates are tired, and prone to making silly mistakes. Many Americans might have problems distinguishing Buchenwald from Auschwitz. But should we not expect more from a Harvard-educated presidential candidate? Is it too much to ask that an aspiring commander-in-chief knows (1) that Auschwitz (like many of the other Nazi death camps) is in Poland, and (2) that the eastern advance of the U.S. Army in World War II stopped on the river Elbe?
Update: The Obama camp responds:

In fact, campaign spokesman Bill Burton says, his great uncle was a member of the 89th Infantry Division that liberated the Ohrduf camp, part of Buchenwald and, according to the Holocaust Museum, the first concentration camp liberated by U.S. troops. The soldier in question, Burton said, is Obama's grandmother's brother, who's still alive.
"Senator Obama’s family is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II – especially the fact that his great uncle was a part of liberating one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald. Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically," Burton says.

Okay. His great-uncle helped liberate one of the camps at Buchenwald while his grandfather heard stories from American soldiers about liberating people from camps, just not Auschwitz and Treblinka like he said. He got the names of the camps and the countries they were in mixed up.

Obama keeps fabricating family war stories who knows what other lies he is covering up.

 

"My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain.

So which is it? His Grandfather? or his Uncle? or his Granduncle? He can't seem to remember who entered Aushwitz? Oh wait, he didn't. Any 11 year old would be able to distinguish between an Uncle or Grandfather.