Posted on 05/27/2008 7:09:52 PM PDT by Libloather
Obama mistaken on name of Nazi death camp
By CHRISTOPHER WILLS, Associated Press Writer
28 minutes ago
NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. - The Barack Obama campaign said Tuesday the candidate mistakenly referred to the wrong Nazi death camp when relating the story of a great uncle who helped liberate the camps in World War II.
The Democratic presidential candidate said the story is accurate except that the camp was Buchenwald, not Auschwitz.
"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," campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. "Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically."
Aides said Tuesday that his grandmother's brother, Charlie Payne, helped liberate a Buchenwald sub-camp in April 1945 as part of the 89th Infantry Division.
In a meeting Monday with veterans, Obama discussed the importance of improving treatment for soldiers suffering post-traumatic stress. To illustrate his point, he talked about his own family.
"I had an uncle who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps. The story in our family was that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn't leave the house for six months," Obama said. "Now, obviously something had really affected him, but at that time there just weren't the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain."
Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet forces as they marched across Poland in January 1945. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says Americans liberated several death camps in Germany, including Buchenwald, Dachau and Mauthausen.
"On April 4, 1945, the 89th overran Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Ohrdruf was the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by U.S. troops in Germany," according to the museum. "A week later, on April 12, Generals Dwight D. Eisenhower, George S. Patton, and Omar Bradley visited Ohrdruf to see, firsthand, evidence of Nazi atrocities against concentration camp prisoners."
Obama's mistaken mention of the camp on Monday quickly generated Internet chatter, ranging from puzzlement to outrage. The Republican Party demanded an explanation.
"It was Soviet troops that liberated Auschwitz, so unless his uncle was serving in the Red Army, there's no way Obama's statement yesterday can be true," said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
None of this matters.
The “mainstream” Democrat newsrooms will continue to protect Obama the way a mother protects a slow child.
If “Uncle Charlie” was in the Navy, Barack’s hat will have to sit on the floor.
Thanks for that.
FReepers are the best researchers in the world!
Looks like the Obama team (who read here regularly) will be up all night trying to figure out a new spin on how a sailor showed up in Buchenwald!
This sure looks like a reliable source:
http://www.kshs.org/genealogists/military/wwiiveteransresults.php?page=421&branch=N
LOL!
> Did he really have to pull this stunt on Memorial Day weekend?
He couldn’t help himself. For shame.
> Thanks. I didn’t think of the “Stolen Valor” part of it. That part makes me even angrier. My Father was an actual decorated combat engineer during the Ardennes and Rhine campaigns under Patton.
God Bless your Father, and please thank him for his Service. We owe it to him, and to his service colleagues, to make sure that their gifts of Service and Sacrifice are not stolen by pretenders. It is a duty of care that people like me (a lifelong Civilian who has never Served) owe to those who gave all.
Why Serve, if pretenders can steal your Valor after-the-fact? We are idiots to celebrate our true heroes if we allow pretenders and grifters and carpet-baggers to steal their limelight.
We honor them only if we guard against the fraudsters.
Their memory is holy. Their graves are sacred ground.
Stolen Valor is just plain wrong.
Caution: Obama’s grandfather, Stanly Dunham had a brother, Ralph Dunham (making him a great uncle) and there was a Ralph Dunham from Kansas who served in the Army.....bears further research.
Yes. His handlers state that the relative was a Charles Payne.
Thank you very much, but sadly my Father passed away in 1977. He was not rewarded well in life. He suffered a massive stroke in 1963 which left him a hemiplegic and bedridden. He died 14 years later both cynical about his faith (Orthodox Jew) and tired. This may be another reason why I find the Obama affair so objectionable.
According to 3rd ID (my old Division!) history, there was a Congressional Medal of Honor given to a Ralph Dunham in the 30th Reg., but it appears nowhere else. A Russell Dunham of Peoria IL rec’d a CMH and had a brother named Ralph in the same unit, but he was not from Kansas, and Stanley Dunham did not have a brother named Russell. ..... Likely a confusion about the names of the brothers accounts for the “Ralph” CMH.
Yes, ! Caution, Caution, Caution!
Let’s not denigrate the service of our veteran’s.
It is Mr. Obama that is making some really dumb statements.
Unfortunately, Mr. Payne and other relatives have not had a say in this discussion. Let’s keep them above the fray in a prominent and very special placeholder while we look at Mr. Obama’s claims.
It is Mr. Obama that should be taken to task to justify his remarks.
I would have a really tough time with someone distorting my family’s service record. I had several uncles who served in WWII and a couple of brothers who were career military.
None of them ever went into an attic ( although there might have been a couple of times they wanted too).
Having said that, though, they may have had a couple of guns nearby and were probably pretty devoted to their religion.
God Bless all of our Military present and past.
President Reagan was The Gipper. Obama is The Gaffer.
This could be big. Really big. I now understand why Clinton is still running. This pales the sniper fire fiction on so many levels if untrue.
He suddenly “discovered” his typical white person family in just the past couple of months, when it was politically useful to him. He visited the old “Dunham family homestead” in Indiana, he spoke in West Virginia of his (white) grandfather’s WWII experiences, etc. He had pretty much written them out of his life for the past 30+ years as he pursued a “black” identity, but now lo and behold, the Dunhams are USEFUL to him!! Now he is re-discovering them but his campaign aides have not troubled to actually do the basic research on who the Dunhams are and what they have done in their lives. Thus we get such stunning “gaffes” as not having any idea where his great-uncle (another typical white person) actually went in the ETO in 1945 and what concentration camp(s) he may have seen (hint, Obambi, it wasn’t in POLAND!!).
Just six weeks ago a related anecdote, told by Obama in West Virginia, was presented through the ears of his (white) grandfather who “heard the stories” of fellow soldiers who had entered Auschwitz and Treblinka (impossible, so far as we know, the US Army never came near them, and Treblinka had been shut down by the end of 1943 after a prisoner revolt was crushed and after nearly all the Jews in Poland had been exterminated).
How did Obama move from hearsay via his grandfather’s fellow soldiers to supposed direct evidence from his “uncle” (great-uncle?), and why does he have no idea of the differences between Poland and Germany, between the Red Army and the US Army, between Auschwitz, Treblinka, and a sub-camp of Buchenwald??
Some, perhaps many, will say it doesn’t matter. People on the left and in the media, especially, will say forget it, he mis-spoke, let’s move on. I object. For all of us who care deeply about history, who care about what horrible things happened in the Holocaust and in all of WWII, who think that historical fact matters...... a basic respect for both the dead and the living requires that we care about getting such things right! It DOES matter (in a very negative way) that Barack Obama approaches the history of his family, his country, all of WWII, and the unimaginable barbarity of the Holocaust as nothing more than fodder for his campaign. It DOES matter that a man blessed with a Columbia and Harvard Law education is so damned cavalier about elementary historical fact. It DOES matter that he cares so little about his (white) family, his country, WWII, or the Holocaust that he would toss out into public discussion such inaccurate attempts at describing historical facts.
see this from a blog that found the West Virginia quotation in an article on LexisNexis:
In West Virginia a few weeks ago, Obama said his grandfather enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, which was December, 1941. [Charleston Gazette (West Virginia) April 8, 2008, Tuesday, available on 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.
Here is the WWII Kansas Veterans Index. His grandfather, Stanley A. Dunham, enlisted in the Army on June 18 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor. [Hat tip Baldilocks.)
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/5/28/02342/3539
Thanks to all for helpful comments. As has been noted, it is extremely important to separate our highest regard for WWII veterans and for whichever relatives of Obama served honorably from the uses Obama may make of their war record and memories for his own political purposes.
I do find it “interesting” that Obama suddenly has discovered his “white” family when it proves politically useful, after pretty much writing them out of his life for 30+ years.
Please see #77 above for my take on why I think this matters far more than the typical campaign “gaffe” that normally represents just some tongue-twisting that all human beings are subject to...... Obama is using this family history to try to establish his bona fides on military and international security issues. If he cannot even bother to get the most basic facts right I think that says a lot about the man.
btw, Obama’s use of the phrase “arsenal of democracy” also suggests how ignorant he is of history, as though he is dimly recalling a few items from a high school textbook. When FDR used the phrase “arsenal of democracy” in a Dec. 1940 speech it was still a year before the USA became involved in WWII combat, a time when it appeared the role for the USA would be to supply the British as they fought to stay alive. Thus, in historical terms the phrase connotes the time BEFORE we were directly involved in the war. That may seem like just a quibble, but it is strange to any historian to use the phrase for the period 1944-45, when of course we had gone far beyond merely being an “arsenal” of democracy. The fact that Obama uses the phrase as he does suggests again only a dim grasp of the history of this country.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrarsenalofdemocracy.html
Great post, and yes it does matter.
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