While speaking to veterans at a Memorial Day rally yesterday Barack Obama noted he didn’t have any military experience, but some of his family has. “I had a 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 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,†according to Obama. Auschwitz
is located in Poland, and the Red Army liberated that concentration camp on January 27th 1945. A second problem with Obama’s claim is his mother was an only child, and his father is Kenyan. Not much chance for for an uncle to serve in the U.S. army. He does mention his grandfather that marched with General Patten, and that could be a source of his confusion since his grandfather told him about “the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka.” Was his grandfather hanging out with the Red Army or just talking to Obama’s mystery uncle in the attic? Obama needs to get a bit more familiar with the “typical white” side of his family and American history.
Alan Cosgrove
Here is video of Obama talking about his uncle liberating Auschwitz;