# Arbeit Macht Frei: Obama and AuschwitzGate **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 30, 2008, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148 "2008-05-30T15:24:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/1 "2008-05-30T15:24:13Z")
Of all the “scandals” that have plagued Obama so far I think this is the most “Stewie Griffin head revolving” “You have got to be fucking kidding me” of them all, but it’s unreal how much 1- it’s caught fire in the anti-Obama neighborhoods of the blogosphere 2- how much [retcon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon) saidsame bloggers have done to reposition their outrage when the gaffe was explained 3- how much recreational outrage has been expressed by the same people who, if pro-Hillary, weren’t that bothered by the “Hold your fire it’s Sinbad!” sniper stories or, if pro-Bush, the fact he can’t prove he fulfilled his Military Appreciation requirements during Vietnam (though in fairness if somebody can’t remember [whether or not he did cocaine](http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/mcclellan-on-bu.html) how’s he supposed to remember whether he came to Montgomery, AL or not?) * * * It occurs that some may not know the story. It’s been referenced in a couple of other threads but doesn’t have it’s own yet. At a Memorial Day speech in New Mexico this week, Obama said > [@](#): > > “I had an uncle who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps.” He went on to say that this traumatized his uncle for a long time after he returned home. Okay, it was pointed out, quite rightly, that this was impossible. Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet army, _not_ by American, and Obama’s known relatives are all American, Kenyan, or (half) Indonesian. It’s an error- so Obama is obviously a compulsive liar who hates America. Or, made a mistake. Obama’s “lie” caught fire. His, ahem, camp responded with, from him, “My bad… it was Buchenwald, not Auschwitz”. Then this was changed again- technically it was [Ohrdruf](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohrdruf_forced_labor_camp), a subsidiary labor camp to Buchenwald- more proof Obama is an American hating Muslim (who I bet used to beg his family to “tell me the part about how Uncle found all the dead and dying Jews again! That story tickles me…”). Okay, there are several possible explanations to the inconcistency. Among them: 1- Obama got this story from his family’s oral tradition and somewhere along the line Buchenwald was changed to Auschwitz in the retelling 2- Obama _knew_ it was Buchenwald/Ohrdruf, _but_ while giving a public speech changed this to Auschwitz since B/O is not as well known but Auschwitz is pretty much universally well known 3- Obama lied about the whole thing in order to boost his appeal with Jewish voters 4- Obama was so strung out on PCP and Horse that he didn’t know what he was saying Okay, as said this catches fire on the blogosphere. One particular blogoloid seems to be the Meredith Baxter of the little Lifetime Original struggle to bring this to the attention of the masses- I don’t know the policy on linking to blogs so I’ll break the following link just in case [http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/2008/05/the\_uncle\_seems](http://www.transterrestrial.com/archives/2008/05/the_uncle_seems) dot html When Team Obama releases the “it was Buchenwald” story, other bloggers fan the flames with “OBAMA DOESN’T EVEN HAVE AN UNCLE! HIS MOM WAS AN ONLY CHILD AND HIS DAD WAS KENYAN AND THEY WERE TOO YOUNG TO FIGHT IN WW2!” and then, when it’s released with "It was a _great-uncle"_, one person takes the trouble to go onto [Ancestry.com](http://Ancestry.com) (the genealogy website where census records are viewable), pull up the 1930 households of Obama’s maternal grandparents (who were both children at the time) to find the names of their brothers who’d have been of fighting age, and releases that this too is impossible, because there were no men of any of these names who liberated Buchenwald. Okey-dokey, Team Obama, while not busy scouring the country side in search of Christian babies for their lord to roast while he’s in between ravishing blonde high school seniors who’ve gone “missing”, mentions “It was his grandmother’s brother Charles”. This causes a couple of folks to say “Nuh-uh! Cause there was no Charles Payne anywhere in the unit that liberated Buchenwald and that’s the Charles Payne who was in the 1930 Census!” Somewhere along the line it comes out (it becomes blurry) that there was a Charles **T.** Payne who liberated Ohrdruf, the work camp subsidiary. There are actually anti Obama bloggers and posters who cyberscream “His uncles is Charles W. Payne! That’s what’s in the Census!”, seemingly oblivious to what millions of genealogists would gladly share, which is that Census records are notorious for misspellings and all other manner of (usually minor) errors (e.g. not at all unusual for a person to be 20 years old in 1910, 34 in 1920, and 42 in 1930, and with a different spelling for surname in each one). The guy at the broken link above finally allows that “OK, Occam’s Razor would indicate that Barack Obama has a maternal great uncle (i.e., his mother’s mother’s brother), named Charles Payne (middle initial unclear) who served with the 355th Infantry that liberated one of the camps in the Buchenwald complex” and that “[if we ignore] the fact that he calls his great uncle his uncle” the story’s substantively true. Except for Auschwitz- and here he (and several other- I’m not picking on him specifically but he seems to be a leader of this) gets onto his “but seriously folks” special episode of Blossom warm lighting soap box to sing “What Auschwitz Means to Me” dirge, stating that Obama using Auschwitz is a sick and twisted pull at emotions when it’s a place that is known for being hell on Earth, while (direct unedited quote) > [@](#): > > Buchenwald, on the other hand, while atrocious beyond normal human understanding, was merely a slave labor camp, and not historically abnormal in a time of war Holy fucking coprophilic shit orgy with attendant gnomes and a dead parakeet… Buchenwald is just a little old slave labor camp. Like the ones you see everyday just about… actually, pretty family friendly even probably, and really not so bad if you used a little Feng Shuih and maybe did an accent wall. He ignores the fact that Auschwitz was “merely a concentration camp” (the death camp was Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was separately contained, and if they can split hairs over uncle/great uncle distinctions and middle initials then I think that’s permissible to point out), and as mentioned I’m only using this dude as example: there are message boards that have hundreds of posts over this. Must run, to be continued, Jerry Springer “Final Thought” coming at some point when I’m at liberty. Feel free to post meanwhile. ---
**Author:** ![stretch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@stretch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stretch)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/2 "2008-05-30T15:35:19Z")
What can anyone say in the face of such stupidity? People are grasping at straws and other people are glad they are willing to go to such extremes. Really, it all comes down to the fact that there are two kinds of people: idiots and assholes. Which do you\* want to be today? 😉 \*general ‘you’, not any specific ‘you’ ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/3 "2008-05-30T15:38:19Z")
For those who missed this link in Great Debates, this is worth checking out for a fabulous, fabulous bitch slap directed at a neocon blogger on particular: [http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/9609.html](http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/9609.html) And the [89th Infantry Division](http://www.89infdivww2.org/) just keeps the hits rolling. > [@](#): > > Concerning the service of Mr. Charles Payne: C.T. Payne was a soldier in the 89th Infantry Division. He served in the 355th Infantry Regiment, Company K. The 355th Infantry Regiment was the unit to liberate Ohrdruf. Mr. Payne was there. > > For those who seek to minimize the horrors of Ohrdruf since it was a ‘work’ camp and not a ‘death’ camp, we have but one word: shame. Ironically, this argument has been made to us time and time again by various Holocaust-deniers and other pro-Nazi groups. We will let the testimony of survivors and veterans speak for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/4 "2008-05-30T15:38:52Z")
Huh? ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/5 "2008-05-30T15:50:05Z")
zZzZzZzZzZzZz… He had a relative who liberated a concentration camp. Who cares which one it was? Does it matter that they had to be transferred to a death camp to be killed? I don’t really think it matters as the whole system was set up to exterminate the Jews. Seriously, the point was that his liberating a concentration camp made an impact on him. Actually it appears there was extermination going on there too: (graphic… well it’s a holocaust image, what do you expect?) > **[File:Ohrdruf Corpses.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ohrdruf_Corpses.jpg)** > > https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/PDMCreative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0falsefalse Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. > You cannot overwrite this file. The following 3 pages use this file: Some smug chickenhawk blogger got put in his place by some greatest generation vet though. Check it out here: > **[sweetness-light.com](http://sweetness-light.com/archive/a-query-to-the-89th-divisions-website)** I must warn you though, these people are disgusting. > [@](#): > > ``` > Please crawl back under the rock you came out from. > > Good day > > Raymond Kitchell, veteran 89th Inf Div > > ``` his response on his blog was… get this: > [@](#): > > I wonder how many people who visit the 89th Infantry site and support Mr. Kitchell’s work realize his politics are those of Cindy Sheehan? Which is really so offensive on so many levels that it makes me want to fucking kill these candy-ass right-wing bloggers. First, what the fuck is wrong with Cindy Sheehan? She lost her son in the Iraq war and protested it. She’s only doing what she thinks is right. But whatever… The point is that the right-wing blogosphere hates her. So they throw this label at a man who fought for our fucking freedoms not 60 years ago. What a fucking waste of space these people are. Seriously, how tasteless can you get? ETA: If we could caption smear attempts the way we caption photos this one would say: **FAIL** ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/6 "2008-05-30T16:25:29Z")
Obama most likely thought he was correct when he said it, although he probably should have played it safe and been more generic, i.e., a relative of mine helped liberate one of the Nazi prisoner camps. People who served in WWII don’t talk much about it, so it’s easy to get facts wrong. It would be like me saying that my father served in the Pacific in WWII. Someone could point out that my father was never in the military. Rightrightright, I meant my _step_father was in the Pacific. There’s no record of that. Oh, right, he was actually in the Aleutian Campaign, which was part of the Pacific Theater. All true, by the way. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/7 "2008-05-30T16:26:44Z")
I thought this was a stupid non-story before I heard any details about it, and now that I’ve read **Sampiro** ’s outline I think it’s an astonishingly moronic and vacuous non-story. I’ve been telling people for years that my grandfather was one of the first American soldiers to enter Auschwitz after it was liberated, because that’s what my father told me. If it turned out to be a different camp I wouldn’t be surprised at all, because my grandfather has been dead for 14 years and my dad (pot) and his mother (age) are not possessed of the greatest memories in the world. Is the basis of the story true? I have no records, but I’m sure it is, because I’ve got no reason to make it up and it would go a long way to explaining the stories I’ve been told about my grandfather’s horrifying temper, huge gun collection\* and the fact that he had a heart attack at the ripe old age of 35. Seeing something like that at age 20 would fuck you up pretty severely, I’m sure. I hope I can still run for President if it turns out my grandfather actually saw Teresienstadt instead of Auschwitz. \*I’m not saying all people with gun collections are fucked in the head, or that all veterans are mentally unstable, although I hope this disclaimer isn’t necessary in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/8 "2008-05-30T16:31:52Z")
**My grandfather sacked Berlin and nailed Hitler’s mistress right in front of him.** There, that should pretty well disqualify me from ever holding public office. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/9 "2008-05-30T16:33:57Z")
> [@](#): > > My grandfather sacked Berlin and nailed Hitler’s mistress right in front of him. Link to youtube, or it never happened. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/10 "2008-05-30T16:35:34Z")
My dad had both an aunt and an uncle (three actually). 2 of which I got to know well when I was growing up, and us kids never called them “Great-Uncle George” or whatever (that was the actual name of one of them). Someone needs to release a **Nitpicker’s Guide to the 2008 Election**. ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/11 "2008-05-30T16:38:37Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] **My grandfather sacked Berlin and nailed Hitler’s mistress right in front of him.** There, that should pretty well disqualify me from ever holding public office. [/QUOTE] Nuh uh. Got you beat. My grandfather was roommates with Marcus Garvey for two months. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/12 "2008-05-30T16:38:50Z")
[QUOTE=mlees] Link to youtube, or it never happened. 😉 [/QUOTE] He sacked Berlin _single-handedly_. There was nobody there to hold the camera. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/13 "2008-05-30T16:55:26Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] I thought this was a stupid non-story before I heard any details about it, and now that I’ve read **Sampiro** ’s outline I think it’s an astonishingly moronic and vacuous non-story. [/QUOTE] Me, I think this is a **good** thing. Because if this is the worst the anti-Obama propagandists can come up with, he might as well head on down to Pier One and start picking out Oval Office curtains this weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/14 "2008-05-30T16:57:58Z")
[QUOTE=John DiFool] My dad had both an aunt and an uncle (three actually). 2 of which I got to know well when I was growing up, and us kids never called them “Great-Uncle George” or whatever (that was the actual name of one of them). [/QUOTE] Same here. I called my great-uncles Uncle and my actual uncles by their first names only. ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/15 "2008-05-30T17:00:29Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] He sacked Berlin _single-handedly_. There was nobody there to hold the camera. [/QUOTE] Hmph. That sounds like Apollo Hoax evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/16 "2008-05-30T17:01:18Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] Me, I think this is a **good** thing. Because if this is the worst the anti-Obama propagandists can come up with, he might as well head on down to Pier One and start picking out Oval Office curtains this weekend. [/QUOTE] You may be right, but for all I know it could also be the death of a thousand cuts. If you’re correct I should probably just plug my ears until November - but on this board that’s a difficult strategy. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/17 "2008-05-30T17:01:56Z")
I thought his uncle was Saddam Hussein? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/18 "2008-05-30T17:04:45Z")
Well at work camps they kept the workers undernourished to save resources. When someone would die they would simply replace them. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/19 "2008-05-30T17:09:32Z")
So he’s getting a taste of the sort of stuff that Hillary Clinton has been dealing with for months. Cry me a river. Politicians need to be _very_ careful of what they say. He really should know that. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148/20 "2008-05-30T17:17:03Z")
I think the more important question is whether or not everyone else out there gets as annoyed as I do by people putting “-gate” at the end of something. -Joe [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/arbeit-macht-frei-obama-and-auschwitzgate/451148.md?page=2)