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, despite previous concerns on that score.
It seems very unlikely that he would have a great uncle by that name, and that someone by that name would have had that service record, who also was an Obama political supporter, and he would put forth such a story, and that they are not the same person, despite the confusion about the middle initial. So, if we ignore the “Auschwitz” reference, and the fact that he calls his great uncle his uncle (understandable, given that he had no actual uncles, at least on his mother’s side), the story is accurate.
But it’s not that easy to ignore Auschwitz.
That’s because “Auschwitz” has become one of the most emotionally charged words in the English (well, OK, it’s not English–it’s German) language. It’s one of the most emotionally charged words in any language, for anyone who is aware of what happened there, and few educated people aren’t, regardless of their native language.
The word is significant in the context of the Obama campaign for two reasons.
First, because it has such emotional connotations, particularly for Jews, with whom Obama has had trouble closing the deal, it looks like he’s pandering to them. I’m not saying that he is, but it has that appearance.
Auschwitz was the site of the deliberate extermination of many of them (as well as Catholics, Gypsies, homosexuals, and others deemed “unworthy of life” by the National Socialists aka Nazis) and one might cynically think that an attempt to say that one of his family members was responsible for the liberation of the camp would give that constituency a warmer feeling for him, despite his many foreign policy advisors who clearly are not fans of the state of Israel (e.g., Zbig).
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. The people who died there did so under the stress of work and disease, rather than as a deliberate attempt to wipe them off the planet. Which, of course, says much more about human nature and history than it does about the Nazis.
But beyond that, it is of concern because it reveals a profound ignorance of history and/or geography.
Anyone familiar with the history of World War II knows that Auschwitz (despite its Germanic name, which like Dansk to Danzig after the conquest in 1939, was a rename–the Polish name is Oswiecim), was in the occupied country of Poland, which before the war had hundreds of thousands of Jews, and after the war had…virtually none.
Furthermore, anyone familiar with that history knows that American troops never advanced past the River Elbe, in Germany, and that the Soviet forces advanced all the way across Poland and into eastern Germany, raping and pillaging as they went. Which is why there was an East Germany. Has Barack never heard of that “country,” which was a colony of the Soviet Union, of which his mother was not obviously unfond (to understate the issue)?
No one, in other words, familiar with that history, would imagine that an American soldier, under Patton, had contributed to the “liberation” (scare quotes because the Soviets never liberated anyone–they only enslaved them) of Auschwitz.
Obama didn’t know this. Nor, apparently, did anyone on his staff, since he had been spouting the same fable since 2002 and no one had bothered to correct him. Or if they had, they were ignored. I’m not sure which is worse.
Given his unfamiliarity with Jack Kennedy’s less-than-successful negotiations with Khrushchev, it makes one wonder what else he doesn’t know.
[Late evening update]
Some have taken issue of my characterization of Buchenwald as “merely a slave labor camp.”
This has to be taken in context. I’m not sure what part of “atrocious beyond human understanding” with regard to that camp the commenters don’t understand.
I wasn’t excusing it in any way. I was simply pointing out that in the historical context of war, in which civilians were generally enslaved or killed, and disposed of when they could no longer work, it was hardly abnormal. Auschwitz (and Treblinka, and Sobibor, and Chelmo, and Betzec, and Majdenek) were in a separate class, previously unknown, which gave rise to the term “genocide,” in which the intent was to wipe out an entire people. I’m sorry that some don’t get the point.
[Thursday morning update]
Well, I certainly seem to have stirred up a hornet’s nest among some. Let me pick up the remains of the straw men that were strewn around and kicked apart here overnight.
For the record, I did not say, or imply, that Buchenwald was a summer camp. I did not say, or imply, that the leftist Hitler’s crimes were a “drop in the bucket” compared to the leftist Stalin’s. I did not say, or imply, that working people to death is not murdering them. I did not say, or imply, that anyone’s death (including Anne Frank’s) was less tragic because it occurred at Bergen-Belsen than at Auschitz. I did not say, or imply, that I would “smile with satisfaction” if I were at Buchenwald instead of Auschwitz.
I’m not sure how to have a rational discussion with anyone nutty enough to have managed to infer any of the above from what I actually wrote.
Also, for the record, I am not now, and have never been a Republican, or (AFAIK) a “right winger,” unless by that phrase one means a classical liberal. As for “sitting down with my Jewish friends and discussing this,” I not only have Jewish friends, but Jewish relatives by blood, or perhaps I should say had, because they include many who doubtless died in both types of camps.
[Update a few minutes later]
One other straw man. I did not say, or imply, that because of this single incident Barack Obama was unfit to be president of the United States. But it is part, albeit a small one, of a much larger tapestry.
[One more update]
To the people in comments asking me what I meant by this, or why I wrote it, I don’t know how to better explain my points than I already have. If after having actually read it carefully, for comprehension, you still don’t get it, or willfully choose to misinterpret it, I can’t help you.
[Update again]
OK, I’ll make one attempt, for those who think that I am somehow “minimizing” what happened at Buchenwald. Perhaps they don’t understand the true meaning of the word “atrocious,” as in the phrase I used, “atrocious beyond human understanding.”
I wasn’t using it in perhaps a more popular (and trivial) sense as “that movie or meal was atrocious.” I was using it in its most literal sense, as in a place where actual atrocities occurred. The two words are related, you know?
[Update about 9:30]
If I change the phrase “merely a slave labor camp,” which is what seems to be generating such irrational fury and umbrage, to “not a site for the extermination of a people on an industrial scale,” will that mollify people? Probably not, but I’ll do it anyway.
[Afternoon update]
I’m wondering how much of the rampant insanity, straw mannery and outrage in comments would have been avoided had I merely omitted the word “merely”.
[Friday morning update]
I have one final (I hope) follow up post on this subject.
“It is no coincidence that our first MTV-era president, Ronald Reagan, was fond of telling audiences stories of how he had helped liberate concentration camps at the end of World War II, when his only experience with a Dachau or Treblinka was sitting in a darkened room watching movies of those events.”
Well, kinda sorta:
That seemed odd to the reporter, and eventually he quizzed the White House:
SO who knows what Reagan actually said? Does the White House version, in which Reagan said something like “I put together a film of German atrocities” and was misunderstood to have taken the film in Germany, not merely edited it back in Hollywood, defy belief?
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/916
conumbdrum:
“Pathetic”? How about, “Co, sweetie, can you read directions? DON’T RESUBMIT IT IF/WHEN IT HANGS UP AND GIVES YOU A ‘500’ PAGE”…. Mistakes like this kinda undercut your scintillating diatribe….
BBB
I don’t doubt that BHO is a reasonably bright guy, he graduated from Columbia and Harvard after all. I couldn’t do that. The real story here is the lack of MSM fact checking and follow-up. They would not have allowed McCain to get away with such claims. I expect though that I will be use to this double standard by November and stop cussing under my breath.
A labor camp is not in the same ballpark of evil as an extermination camp.
I think the operative phrase here is, ‘a distinction without a difference.’
A labor camp is not in the same ballpark of evil as an extermination camp.
Really? Is that your final answer? I propose you try that one out on a Holocaust survivor and report back on how many teeth you have left.
Wikiepedia articles on the Holocaust make the distinction between Nazi “forced labor” and the Nazi practice of “extinction through labor”. Forced labor might be what TallDave is thinking of, while “extinction through labor” was a method of genocide.
Leo, I’m not the one trivializing the need for traumatized vets to receive proper care, Obama did that. We know nothing about the uncle except he served in the military and then lived in the attic for 6 months, supposedly because he was burdened by his military experience. Who knows if that’s true?
Who knows anything about the uncle except that soundbite? And for Obama it doesn’t matter. It sounded good. It fit the narrative. Vets aren’t to be honored for their service, they’re to be pitied for their sacrifice. They are just another special interest group for Obama to pander to on a particular holiday. Another group of deprived Americans who can be promised a program.
In the same speech he said women military are sexually harrassed. And they need a government program too according to Obama. I’m surprised he didn’t bring up a female neighbor or a female school friend who served in the military and got pestered by some hormonally charged corporal just to illustrate his point. But then he probably doesn’t know any. He had to reach back 60 years just to find any personal connection to someone who served in the military.
If Uncle Charles hadn’t gone up to the attic when he got home from WWII, we never would have heard about him. And now that the story has been challenged, we probably won’t hear about him again.
Wingnut Logic 101: Anne Frank died at Bergen-Belsen — therefore her death was less tragic than if she’d died at Auschwitz.
“Buchenwald, on the other hand, while atrocious beyond normal human understanding, was merely a slave labor camp”
Wow. Just wow. Quote of the campaign for sure. Heck, you ought to do like the purple bandaid BS and make “Party at Buchenwald, dudes!” pins.
Fun Fact: Tens of thousands of people were shot, poisoned (or both), and stacked like cordwood and dissolved with quicklime at Buchenwald.
I’m not the first to say this, but please, if you think Obama has some kind of Jew problem, by all means, alleviate it with your death camp hagiography. And spare us the sophistry about what you “really meant”. My god.
By the way, we get the point. The point is that if you’d been imprisoned at Buchenwald while the Nazis poisoned you and then shot you in the head after X hours so that they could chart its effects on your internal organs after a given amount of time, you’d have smiled with the satisfaction that comes with knowing that you weren’t slaughtered at an “A-list” genocide facility.
Seriously, I recommend you invite all your Jewish friends over for dinner and then explain this “reasoning” to them. It couldn’t be any more painful than the “Schindler’s List” episode of Seinfeld.
Please, in the name of all that’s holy, take a look in the mirror, get someone else to read your sophistry, and admit you have a serious problem.
Hey, Drudge is reporting that Obama’s just made a *MAJOR* gaffe!
He just said that Auschwitz was a death camp but Buchenwald was “merely a slave labor camp”!
When questioned further, he pointed out that “plenty of people die in wars”.
Oooh, now the news programs are reporting that he said something like “I apologize if anyone was offended by something they read into something that I didn’t say.”
Is this really someone you want making decisions for you, I ask?
Here’s what the veterans of the 89th Infantry Division think of your ‘a work camp is not as bad as a death camp’ bullshit:
Would you like to reconsider what you wrote?
Here’s what the veterans of the 89th Infantry Division think of your ‘a work camp is not as bad as a death camp’ bullshit:
Would you like to reconsider what you wrote?
Here’s what the veterans of the 89th Infantry Division think of your ‘a work camp is not as bad as a death camp’ bullshit:
Would you like to reconsider what you wrote?
A labor camp is not in the same ballpark of evil as an extermination camp.
A labor camp IS and extermination camp. Seriously, people.
Without attempting to split hairs too finely, one further distinguish between Buchenwald and the subcamp that involved the 89th – Ohrdruf.
http://www.89infdivww2.org/ohrdruf/ohrdrufintro.htm
Looks like this particular blog posting is being discussed at length here:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=10482
And elsewhere (via links in the above link). This posting really struck a nerve.
There were distinctions to be made between the extinction and concentration/slave labor camps. Nevertheless, you overstate the commonality of German brutality in the latter. Concentration camps are not extraordinarily rare in ethnic-based conflicts, but I wouldn’t call them common. In addition, their degree can vary greatly.
In the Boer War, of course, the British gave them their name. Although many died, most deaths were unintentional and due to disease and starvation, making it more a matter of negligence than outright murder. The same could be said, for example, for Algerian internees of the French during their war of Independence.
In other instances, such relocation camps have been created without significant deaths. Both us and the British, for example, created “strategic hamlets” in Vietnam and Malaya to seperate vulnerable/hostile populations from insurgents. There were logistical screw ups, particularly in the former effort, but very few, if any deaths were involved.
The German concentration/work, in addition to the extermination camps, were of a much deadlier degree than those in most other wars. Tens of thousands of deaths – mostly intentional – and institutionalized sadism. This stuff isn’t unique to the Nazis by far, but neither is it necessarily a common occurrance. That said, there’s still a distinction to be made between outright death camps and their cousins.
And oh yeah, for some of the idiots above…my (non-Jewish and Jewish) family was at both Aushwitz and some of the various slave labor camps. There’s your supposed moral superiority card. But then again, that’s completely fucking meaningless. The facts are the facts, or not, no matter who says them.
There is a simple distinction between labor camps and death camps.
Many people, including my father, survived labor camps. Few people survived death camps.
About 60% of the those that went through Buchenwald complex lived. Less than 1% of those that went through Auschwitz lived.
Buchenwald was profitable for the Nazis. They were in the middle of a war, they needed all the production they could. Buchenwald used people like coal, destroying them to make things that were useful to the war. It was evil.
Auschwitz was not profitable. It used resources on an industrial scale that the Nazis desperately needed elsewhere, simply to kill on an industrial scale. It was beyond evil. We do not have a word for what it was.
It is, I know, too simple a comparison for the brilliant minds of the left to contemplate. For my deep stupidity, thinking that such monstrosity must not happen again, I humbly apologize. I am proud that the United States emptied Saddam’s prisons full of children, ended the shreddings of living prisoners by him and his Nazi Bath party. I understand that you believe that makes me a fascist myself, and beneath your contempt.
I will live with your scorn.
MIR, I think you missed Rand’s point. Rand was clearly trying to highlight that the extermination camps were for genocide – the intentional destruction of an entire people. As I commented above, I think Rand is mistaken because he does not seem to be acknowledging that the Nazis used labor as a means of genocide. But you are obscuring the genocide distinction when you only talk about the brutality of the German camps, and certainly when you make comparisons to the Boer war or Algeria. I’m not suggesting any moral calculus and I’m not diminishing anyone’s suffering – I’m just trying to clarify Rand’s position (as I understand it). To sum up: Rand’s point is that it isn’t about brutality, it is about genocide.
Michelle wrote:
“The argument here is embarrassing. People in Europe can read it and see that Americans use something like what happened in WWII so frivolously . . . it’s shameful. . . utterly shameful.”
Europe here, Norway to be precise.
Not going to speak for all over here (no one can) but I find it interesting to see how much is made up over making a distinction between camps that were different. If I didn’t know better I would think this all touched a very raw nerve for Obama supporters, but you’re not all Obama supporters right?
Mere slave labor (camps or elsewhere) and industrial genocide (camps or elsewhere) are different. Since a lot of commenters here don’t seem to see the difference I’ll try to illuminate it: granted a lot of people suffered horribly and died in both but if there is no difference between the two then why did the National Socialists send primarily Jews from all over Europe to the extermination camps rather than to the forced labor camps?
Anyone who knows anything at all about the motivations should be able to understand that there’s a fundamental difference in play between a camp created for the purpose of killing people in the most efficient manner as quickly and effortlessly as possible so as to just be rid of them and on the other hand camps made to make use of people as slave labor.
Yes among those who arrived at the extermination camps some of the fit youngsters and adults were used as slave labor to operate the extermination until they became unfit. The distinction is still there regardless. Also since the camps filled up fast not everyone ended up where they would have if there had been spare extermination capacity. The distinction is still there regardless. The National Socialists also had an oversupply of slaves and as such didn’t treat their “animals” like “responsible” slaveholders would. The distinction is still there regardless.
Still don’t get it? The extermination of what in their view was the lowest sub-human classes was their gospel while the use of slave labor was simply putting resources to use.
Habitat Hermit, since the targets of genocide, the Jews and the Roma people, did get sent to Buchenwald, I don’t see why it matters in the context of Rand’s argument.
Also, I think the distinction you are making involves only who would die first. The Nazis planned to kill 30 million Slavs, Slavs who the Nazis were first sending to forced labor camps, but ultimately to their deaths if the labor didn’t kill them. The war ended before this phase of the plan was carried out.
I don’t see this as a useful story. Rand doesn’t indicate why Obama should know the location and specific nature of Nazi concentration camps. Second, I find claiming one camp is less evil than another based on slightly different purpose is foolish. My limited understanding of the Buchenwald complex is that it was not a straightforward part of the genocide-based industry. Parts were POW camps with relatively humane conditions while others were gateways to the deathcamps where German industry got some work out of the victims before they died or were sent away to die. How does the outcome become less evil, if you toil under hellish conditions for a few years until you’re too weak to work before getting sent to places like Auschwitz? Is it better quality of life? I don’t see it.
As I wrote Does Barack Have an Uncle and Did He Liberate Auschwitz?
I agree with Rand that there was probably an “uncle” and that he was in the Army during WW2 and he probably participated in the liberation of a labor camp called Ohrdruf.
But here is what I look away from watching the video of his speech:
So what we appear to have is something that�s commonly known as �resume inflation.� And that�s what you get when you have a man who has no real experience. When what you have is an empty suit who is trying to pretend that there is substance there.
But what was the point of the fable? The point was really to try to connect with the American people by telling them how callous the government is about the emotional problems of its soldiers. The �uncle� is supposed to have spent six months in the attic, having experienced the sights he encountered in the liberation of Ohrdruf, an experience that may have lasted less than three hours.
The punch line is that Obama will make sure that America�s fighting men and will get all the mental care they deserve.
That�s it. That�s the punch line. That�s the reason for the fable. That�s what American fighting men are good for: a story line for a health care pitch. And the combat vet is cast in the eternal role that the Liberals have created for him: the crazy uncle in the attic. Just wait until Barack discovers another uncle whose wartime experiences drove him to drink and living in the street when he isn�t shooting up a beer hall on Saturday nights.
Robert I think Rand’s argument was the difference between the different types of camps and what they represent. And while there was some overlap between the camps it was for practical reasons rather than ideological ones.
One won’t see the difference from the perspective of the dead but one should see the difference from the perspective of the National Socialists. I really think the almost supreme importance they gave to Judenfrei should be enough on its own to peer into their abyss and establish the difference. Some argue that it was even more important to them than winning the war (certainly most of the SS saw it that way).
That is the reason for the differences already pointed out by others both in regard to the disparity in survival rate and the reason why it was acceptable to lose money on not just operating the extermination camps but also all the additional work involved in “cleansing”.
I think it’s wrong to say that it’s all the same, and even if for the sake of argument one postulated that exactly the same groups of people were sent both places the difference between the camps would still remain: one kind was targeted at industrial level speedy extermination at any cost while the other wasn’t. Such “kill factories” processing live humans into dead had never been seen before and haven’t really been seen afterwards either, at least not in the same industrial high-volume fashion. That is what Auschwitz symbolizes, it is the symbol of the Holocaust.
This has to be the most pathologically stupid post I have ever read. The extreme dead ender wing of the GOP has sunk to the point where they try to parse the difference between a concentration camp and a slave labor camp. Good job idiots! Thankfully you morons have demnostrated to most of America that everything you touch turns to sh!t. So Mission accomplished. Now you and Michelle Malkin go sniff out the hidden jihadi meaning in the Starbucks logo.
Sir:
I’m a 42-year old Jewish male living in New York state. Two close family relatives are survivors of the Holocaust, both still living.
I’m not affiliated with any political campaign or candidate, and, if anything, lean more to the Republicans these days, mostly as a result for their stronger support of Israel.
I’ve read your post carefully, including the updates, and think you should probably reconsider your position. I’d actually suggest you apologize.
I think there a plenty of reasons to think that John McCain would be a plenty President than Barack Obama, but a inaccurate reference to the death camp his great-uncle helped liberate just isn’t one.
What’s most disturbing — and I’ve really tried to understand why you would do this — is your attempt to minimize the efforts of soldiers who were part of liberating those camps that didn’t happen to have active gas chambers and crematoria.
As any even casual student of the Holocaust knows, all of these facilities were in fact death camps — no Jew or other undesirable was ever intended to live for long within its fences, even when their labor was deemed valuable to the Nazi regime.
The idea that Obama glorified his uncle’s service by referring to Auschwitz as opposed to the nearly-as-famous and equally-horrifying Buchenwald is so ridiculous that it requires my response.
I have never written in to any blog before, and I’m not inclined to do so in the future. So please take my words in the spirit in which they are given — which is as someone who might otherwise agree with you — but in this case, you’re wrong. And it’s offensive.
Jonathan Simon
Tribeca, New York
10007
What’s most disturbing — and I’ve really tried to understand why you would do this — is your attempt to minimize the efforts of soldiers who were part of liberating those camps that didn’t happen to have active gas chambers and crematoria.
I made no such attempt. I did no such thing.
The idea that Obama glorified his uncle’s service by referring to Auschwitz as opposed to the nearly-as-famous and equally-horrifying Buchenwald is so ridiculous that it requires my response.
Thank you for your opinion. I continue to disagree.
I don’t get how the distinction between the camps is relevant- it was a simple misstatement- Buchenwald instead of Auschwitz.
Wow.
You’re an idiot.
What’s most disturbing — and I’ve really tried to understand why you would do this — is your attempt to minimize the efforts of soldiers who were part of liberating those camps that didn’t happen to have active gas chambers and crematoria.
I made no such attempt. I did no such thing.
Then I simply have to ask: what is the point of this post? Why bother to draw a distinction between the two camps? Why did you use the word “merely”?
Why did you write this?
Sally wrote:
“Who knows anything about the uncle except that soundbite? And for Obama it doesn’t matter. It sounded good. It fit the narrative. Vets aren’t to be honored for their service, they’re to be pitied for their sacrifice.”
See, Sally, he didn’t say this either. You simply start with the assumption that everything he says is a lie and then are incensed at everything he says because–you think–“he doesn’t really mean that; I know what he really means.”
And I’ll admit, if you assume everything a politician says is a lie it is easy to come up with reasons not to like that politician. But that doesn’t make them true.
The fact is, support for good veterans’ care is not based on pity, it is based on respect for service. It’s based on the idea that that service must be repaid by doing right by our soldiers when they get home.
If you assume I’m lying, it will be easy to ignore what I’ve said. But I’m not lying.
Leo, I didn’t say Obama said it. I’m saying it. The uncle is a plot device. He’s a prop.
Obama isn’t interested in talking about his uncle except to say that military service in WWII traumatized him and as a result he was up in the attic for 6 months. We have no insight into the uncle’s condition beyond that because the uncle’s WW II experience isn’t important to Obama otherwise.
Ask yourself this: would Obama have been talking about Uncle Chuck if he hadn’t gone and lived in the attic for 6 months? Which, frankly, doesn’t sound like all that bad of an idea in the first place. Maybe he just wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Work things out for himself. Which apparently worked quite well since he’s not in the attic anymore.
Oh, yeah, I forgot, we’re not allowed to take care of ourselves. We have to accept our victim label and get enrolled in a government program where some non-military serving Wesleyan grad can achieve personal satisfaction performing a little “community” service.
Buchenwald wasn’t merely a slave labor camp. As John Cole points out, they did experiments resulting in death. They injected people with poison and let them die or killed them for the autopsy. They also gave people chemical burns. They essentially tortured people. And between 33,000 to 56,000 people died there. I bet there was no such thing as merely a slave labor camp. Those poor people were used by sick Nazis as guinea pigs. And to claim that the camp was merely a place where people were worked to death is disregarding the lives that that wretched place claimed.
> try to parse the difference between a concentration camp and a slave labor camp.
I note that our friends on the left have no problems distinguishing Stalin’s atrocities, which they excuse if not laud, from those of Hitler.
Che, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, the list goes on and on. The only leftist murderer that the left criticises is Hitler.
I think that it’s the fashion sense.
It doesn’t matter how much you clear your throat now, you were plainly comparing Buchenwald with Auschwitz, to minimize the horror of the former.
And, you did so inaccurately.
Why would anyone ever write something like this. What fool would ever say Buchenwald was merely a slave labor camp. Wow.
Exactly, Sally. You are saying it. You are inventing Obama’s motivations and psychology whole cloth.
And you aren’t too interested in finding out whether your inventions are true or not, or you would know that Obama has mentioned his relatives that fought in WW II in many of his speeches. I can’t recall whether he ever brought up this particular uncle before, but the notion that he only brings up his veteran family members as victims is simply false.
The notion that we should not provide care to veterans because it turns them into victims is faily disgusting. The troops have paid for their care with their blood and sweat. It is our obligation to provide it to them. You characterize injured troops as victims, but in fact they are people who have served their country, many of them as heros. And they are entitled to be treated fairly by that country.
The 89th Infantry hates america:
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.
It has been recorded that in Ordruf itself the last days were a slaughterhouse. We were shot at, beaten and molested. At every turn went on the destruction of the remaining inmates. Indiscriminant criminal behavior (like the murderers of Oklahoma City some days ago). Some days before the first Americans appeared at the gates of Ordruf, the last retreating Nazi guards managed to execute with hand pistols, literally emptying their last bullets on whomever they encountered leaving them bleeding to death as testified by an American of the 37th Tank Battalion Medical section, 10 a.m. April 4, 1945.
Today I’m privileged thanks to G-d and you gallant fighting men. I’m here to reminisce, and reflect, and experience instant recollections of those moments. Those horrible scenes and that special instance when an Allied soldier outstretched his arm to help me up became my re-entrance, my being re-invited into humanity and restoring my inalienable right to a dignified existence as a human being and as a Jew. Something, which was denied me from September 1939 to the day of liberation in 1945. I had no right to live and survived, out of 80 members of my family, the infernal ordeal of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Ordruf, and its satellite camp Crawinkle and finally Theresinstadt Ghetto-Concentration Camp.
Rabbi Murray Kohn
I note you say “Leftist Hitler” and “Leftist Stalin” not Fascist Hitler or Fascist Stalin.
That tells me all I need to know about you. Intellectually dishonest and full of shit.
Yeah and I bet Buchenwald was a like a walk in the park compared to Auschwitz. Almost not worth liberating.
Moron!
“Leftist Hitler”
Clearly, this is someone whose musings on events in the 30s and 40s deserves serious attention.
*rolls eyes*
I note you say “Leftist Hitler” and “Leftist Stalin” not Fascist Hitler or Fascist Stalin.
They were both leftists, and they were both fascists, in the broadest sense of the word. They were in fact allies up until Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union. The left only revised history to call Hitler a right winger because of the anti-semitism and his betrayal of Stalin.
I bet Buchenwald was a like a walk in the park compared to Auschwitz. Almost not worth liberating.
And yet another straw man. What part of “atrocious” do you not understand? I never said, or implied, that it was either a “walk in the park,” or “not worth liberating.”
I’d say that “moron” much better describes someone who could come up with such an insane interpretation of what I wrote.
Hey, this is funny! You start with a clear and concise post, and the comments thread turns into:
“I’m outraged!” “I’ll take your outrage, and raise it!” “Noooo, I can haz more outrage than you!” “No you can’t, because I’m Keith Olberman, and NOBODY can be more outraged than ME!.”
Good post, I liked it.
” I note you say “Leftist Hitler” and “Leftist Stalin” not Fascist Hitler or Fascist Stalin.
That tells me all I need to know about you. Intellectually dishonest and full of shit. ”
Bravo.
I agree. This guy who wrote this article doesn’t know shit about history, that’s for sure. Wonder if he also doesn’t know what Chamberlin did to “appease”.
Go back to your day job. Just because you have an internet connection and a keyboard doesn’t mean you know jack.
Leo, I’m not a camp follower of Obama so I don’t know about the many many speeches he’s given where he praises his relatives who served in WW II. As I said earlier, he doesn’t have any experience of his own to drawn on and apparently he doesn’t know anybody who has served more recently. As he said of himself, he didn’t serve because he didn’t have to. That by itself tells you what he thinks of military service.
I acknowledge that I don’t see those who serve in the military as victims. But Obama does. And I don’t see them as needing to be “cared for” because they paid for that care with their “blood and sweat”. Many who have served our country in the military never bled and probably don’t sweat that much. Clearly there are some who did and do bleed and their injuries, mental or physical, should be treated. And we do that already.
I see military service as an honor and a privilege. Obama doesn’t. As I think any vet would tell you, not all who serve end up in combat. And even those who perform amazing feats of courage and valor under fire reject the title of hero. They’re just men and women doing their duty and not for fame or profit. Which in this country these days, that is pretty heroic.
This guy who wrote this article doesn’t know shit about history, that’s for sure.
I know enough to know that the full name of the Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Worker’s Party, and that its platform was quite leftist. Really, if you take away the genocide and the racism and war mongering, just what was it about Hitler that you didn’t like?
In the future, you may offend fewer people if you just post Obama, Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler.
At the very least you’ll get a handful of people who show up to say “dudes, get a sense of humor”.
As it stands, you’ve made a huge gaffe, you’re refusing to apologize for what you said but are instead only barely apologizing if anyone was offended which was, you point out, not your intention… All in all, you’re acting like a caricature.
Dude.
Come back to this post in a year.
Maybe you’ll see what other people are seeing.
Quit trying to do all the late justifications. Your entire article is trying to turn Obama’s minor mistake into a huge deal. Unfortunately there is not too much to work with. The uncle unfortunately for you did exist. He was a great uncle not an uncle, but you won’t get much traction out of that. So what does that leave us with. Oh! the concentration camps! Lets see. There was a mistake in that. But you can make it look worse by saying, yet not saying that Buchenwald was somehow less than Auschwitz. When called upon it, can argue endlessly via infinite updates over the word atrocious, and claim no one understands your brilliant argument.
Any one who calls you on it is outraged!
Sorry buddy the word is not outraged. Its just disgust at the dishonesty and subsequent backpeddling.
As I said moron!
As it stands, you’ve made a huge gaffe, you’re refusing to apologize for what you said but are instead only barely apologizing if anyone was offended which was, you point out, not your intention…
I disagree that I’ve made a gaffe at all, let alone a huge one. And no, I’m not apologizing at all, because there’s nothing to apologize for. All I’m doing is pointing out that I didn’t write what so many, in their inability to comprehend clear English, seem to fantasize that I did. If some people choose to be irrationally offended, that’s their problem, not mine. Nobody made them come to my web site and misread it.
As I said, come back in a year.
Maybe you’ll reach a conclusion other than “everyone else except me is stupid and thin-skinned.”