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Obama's Auschwitz Gaffe

By Jeralyn

I've been getting e-mails all day about Obama's Auschwitz gaffe. There seemed to be confusion about what Obama said. I checked the transcripts and even though they show Obama misspoke, I forgot about it. It's now on the Washington Post's Caucus Blog.

In an attempt to burnish his credentials with America's veterans, Barack Obama has frequently talked about his grandfather "who served in Patton's army." He has now added a new episode to his World War II repertoire: the uncle who liberated Auschwitz.

Unfortunately, the story shows that the presumptive Democratic nominee has a poor grasp of both history and geography.

Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians on January 27, 1945. Perhaps he meant to say Buchenwald or Dachau, Dora-Mittelbau, Flossenbürg, or Mauthausen. But from the transcript below the fold, I doubt he confused his grandfather and uncle. (And if it was an uncle, it would probably have to have been a great uncle.) [More...]

Here is what he said via the transcript on Lexis.com. It was not in his prepared speech, but in response to a question by someone in the audience:

Can you tell us a little about your grandfather, how he served?

OBAMA: Yes.

QUESTION: How it impacted you?

OBAMA: Well, you know, it's interesting.

My grandfather, as I said, he served in Patton's Army in World War II. And like a lot of veterans of World War II, he actually didn't talk much about his service.

You know, there was a real sense of, obviously, great pride. And I remember one of the gifts that he gave me when I was still a teenager was his dogtags, that he had still kept. But he didn't like talking about those stories, you know. And partly because, you know, there were obviously friends of his that never came back.

And I think that part of the -- part of the reason he didn't talk about it much was, you know, in World War II and certainly in Vietnam, we didn't have the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder, right? So, people basically had to handle it on their own.

OBAMA: I had an uncle who was one of the -- who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps. 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.
Right, now, obviously, something had really affected him deeply. But at that time, there just weren't the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain.

And that's why, you know, this idea of making sure that every single veteran, when they are discharged, are screened for post- traumatic stress disorder and given the mental health services that they need -- that's why it's so important. (my emphasis)

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.

It would have been something if he had told that story at the synagogue in Florida last week. I wonder if they would have let him off the hook so fast.

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Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 27, 2008 (boomark / email).