Barack Obama’s campaign scrambled Tuesday to set the record straight about remarks the Democratic presidential candidate made on Memorial Day where he said his uncle helped liberate the Auschwitz death camp at the end of World War II.
There were two obvious problems with the tale: Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army, and Obama’s American mother was an only child.
As the Republican National Committee seized on the discrepancies, Obama’s campaign clarified that the Illinois senator was actually referring to his “great uncle,” and that he had confused Auschwitz with another concentration camp. The campaign said he meant to refer to Ohrdruf, a sub-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.
It was an easy mix-up. The concentration camps all sound alike. Auschwitz, Ohrdruf.