Using the Holocaust to Smear Obama
I never thought I'd see the day when the Holocaust would be used as a tool for "gotcha" politics. But over the last two days, we have seen John McCain's supporters at the Republican National Committee and at Fox News launch tasteless attacks on Barack Obama. In their attempt to score a few political points, they have diminished the experience of those who suffered and died at Buchenwald, and disrespected the service of the heroic American troops who liberated them.
It started yesterday when the RNC put out a statement slamming Obama for referring to Auschwitz as he related a family story on Memorial Day. Instead of merely asking for clarification, the RNC smeared Obama's "dubious claim," and suggested -- tongue in cheek -- that perhaps Obama's uncle "was serving in the Red Army." They went on to say that the story raised questions "about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief."
It turns out that Obama's great uncle -- the brother of the grandmother who largely raised him -- served in the 89th Infantry Division of the United States Army, which liberated Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald. But astonishingly, that only served to fan the flames for those on the right who saw an attempt to use the heroic service of Obama's uncle against him. In their breathless attempt to damage Obama, Fox News has stooped to a level that is truly depressing.
This morning on the program Fox and Friends, one of the hosts said: "It wasn't Auschwitz. It was a labor camp called Buchenwald." Just in case the point was missed, she repeated. "It wasn't Auschwitz, it was a labor camp. You would think you would want to be as specific as possible if you are telling one of these anecdotes." Meanwhile, a news "crawl" at the bottom of the screen reinforced, in bold letters, that this was "a work camp, rather than an extermination camp."
Here are some facts about Buchenwald, which is one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. At this "work camp," prisoners were often worked, starved, tortured, or beaten to death. Sometimes they were simply murdered. Roughly 250,000 people were imprisoned there between 1937 and 1945, many of them Jews. Over 50,000 people lost their lives.
At Nuremberg, the world was shocked to learn that some of Buchenwald's victims were skinned, and the human skin was then used to make lampshades, book covers, and other keepsakes. Buchenwald was also a site for the infamous Nazi "medical experiments" on prisoners, which were often nothing more than crude and horrific forms of torture.
To take just one anecdote about the "work" done at Buchenwald, prisoners had to build the camp road, and camp guards used to shoot those who were not carrying stones that were heavy enough. In the final days before liberation, some 10,000 prisoners from Auschwitz and Gross-Rossen were marched to Buchenwald, adding to the horrific scene that awaited American troops.
On April 4, 1945, Ohrdruf became the first Nazi concentration camp to be liberated by American forces. U.S. troops -- including the 89th Infantry Division -- found a scene that was vividly described by the Eisenhower Memorial Commission: "The scene was an indescribable horror even to the combat-hardened troops who captured the camp. Bodies were piled throughout the camp. There was evidence everywhere of systematic butchery. Many of the mounds of dead bodies were still smoldering from failed attempts by the departing SS guards to burn them."
Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley would tour the camp in the days ahead. Eisenhower was so moved by the atrocities at this "work camp," that he wrote to his wife Mamie that it was "beyond the American mind of comprehend." He made both his own men and all of the citizens of the German town of Gotha tour the camp. He wanted the Americans to know the evil that they were fighting. He wanted German citizens to see what had been done in their name. After this tour, the Mayor of Gotha and his wife hanged themselves.
Many of the terrible photographs and videos that we have seen of the Holocaust come from these days. Eisenhower said that he wanted, "to give first-hand evidence if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.'" The carefully documents attrocities at Buchenwald are thus part of the record that we use to confront anyone who would deny the horror of the Holocaust.
The men who liberated Buchenwald were heroes, plain and simple. That includes Barack Obama's great uncle. In their march across Europe, the 89th Infantry Division suffered over 1,000 casualties, with over 300 men killed. In their liberation of Buchenwald, they put an end to one of the most horrible concentration camps of the 20th century. We must honor them, just as we must remember each and every victim of the criminal Nazi regime.
To those who continue to use this story to damage Barack Obama, I have a simple question: have you no shame? You attempts to diminish his uncle's service for your own political gain says a lot more about you than it does about Barack Obama.
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George W. Bush's Grandfather, Prescott Bush, headed a financial syndicate that bankrolled, in the 1930s and 40s, many of the critical industrial corporations that made Hitler's Wehrmacht and "Final Solution" possible. For example, Prescott Bush financed Krupp Steel and German United Steel and I.G Farben.
Prescott Bush funded I.G. Farben to build a chemical plant used to convert coal to liquid petroleum fuel near Auschwitz, Poland because I. G. Farben liked and took advantage of the availability of slave labor there. I. G. Farben also produced the poison gas that was used in the extermination chambers at the death camps.
This firm was financed by our current President's grandfather, Prescott Bush. The funding of Nazi Germany by Prescott Bush and his associates was terminated after Congressional investigation, if my memory serves me right, in 1943. So there is ample evidence of these facts in the Congressional Record. You can read a summary of these facts in Kevin Phillips's book, "An American Dynasty" which is about the Bush family.
On my pile of books to read soon is "Conjuring Hitler - How Britain and America made the Third Reich" by Guido Giacomo Preparata, which is a recently published historical study that goes in detail into the relationships between U.S. and U.K. banking and the industrial renaissance of German Industry after WW II.
So if the corporate media want to look into someone's ancestors, Prescott Bush would be a good one to go after in this arena.
Thanks heavyrunner for educating these toods !
This reminds me of the Sara Silverman joke about her young niece mistakenly stating that Hitler was responsible for the death of 60 million Jews during the Holocaust. Sara reprimands her niece, telling her it was "...only six million...Sixty million -- that would be unforgivable."
She also tells a joke about her grandmother in a concentration camp - that joke wasn't funny either.
And if she wants her career to last then she is going to have to stop the "I'm a Jew who makes jokes about the Holocaust everyone should be shocked isn't this the most shocking thing you have ever heard" act because nobody is shocked anymore.
Sara Silverman is S.F. (Seriously Funny).
Well... I thought the joke I referred to was funny, as is ironically points out how easily we become inured to the horrors of human history. Like the Republican smear machine who apparently thinks that liberating Buchenwald was not such a big deal --it was not such a bad place for Jews to be sent . After all, it' was no Auschwitz..
But, then. the point of my joke wasn't to start a critique of a particular contemporary comedian. Sorry if I led you astray.
Fox News and the RNC are desperately lashing out with any verbal weapons they can, no matter how weak. They know they have no chance in the coming general election, to retain the office of president, or many legislative seats. The voters have finally grasped the incredible level of incompetence of the Bush administration, and the damage that has been done. America is throwing the GOP out on their ear, and hopefully the neo-con movement is discredited forever.
I'm not so sure that the people who voted for Bush and the other corrupt Republican politicians (Delay, Cunningham, Lott, et. al) have really grasped the incompetence of the administration or their party. After all, if there is one thing Republicans have shown time and again it's that party trumps all else. Well, that and the truth never got in the way of a good smear. But, I do agree that this does show how shameless and desperate they truly are to keep power, at any cost. I also agree that going the high road and simply asking for a clarification would have proven more beneficial to the RNC, but, common sense has never been their strong suit. Instead, they act like kindergarteners crying during recess.
Thank you, Menachem, for telling the truth in a way that is both touching and horrifying. Senator Obama confused the names of two of the most wicked places on earth in retelling a family anecdote that occurred nearly 20 years before he was born. The core of his story was completely correct, and I appreciate your eleoqent rebuttal to those who try to score poltical points by claiming that Buchenwald was "just" a labor camp.
- Jim Heaphy
Heaphy, I was going to make my own reply, until I read yours and felt there was no need.
To try to make an issue out of this is revealing of an evil and unprincipled mindset.
And do those piling-on Obama have anything to say about the Bush family name and fortune being built partly but significantly on financing Hitler from 1924 onward, selling Nazi securities AFTER Pearl Harbor, investment in a synfuel plant at Auschwitz and helping to plant all sorts of wanted nazi war criminals at the upper echelons of the Republican Party?
And to call Buchenwald "only" a labor camp is like calling the Iraq War "only" a "mistake" instead of what it is: the kind of crime[s] for which 11 nazis were sentenced to hang at Nuremberg.
As for some of the Zionist (Zionism does not equal Judaism) organizations supporting the Republicans, well some of them have never had a problem with collaborating with real nazis and anti-Semites--under the unprincipled banner of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".
So then, why don't the principal Jewish Organizations stand up, step out and tell the Repugnant party to "CUT IT OUT" !. It is a disgraceful way of trying to prey upon the pain of so many people.
They need to be humiliated for their obviously crude and despicable tactics. They need to be called out, and slapped around a few times.
I am a Hillary supporter who has no interest in anything that the Obama campaign says or does. However, I am also Jewish. Buchenwald, as the columnist here points out, was just as infamous as any extermination camp, and the fact that its official title was "labor camp" does not diminish the horror of what happened there. This was clearly an innocent error on Obama's part, and the fact that the Republicans are trying to capitalize on it infuriates me enough to think I may just have to get involved in the Obama campaign if he achieves the nomination. Clearly the Republicans are unfit to govern the nation. This is just the latest example of how low they will sink to achieve their goals.
NO MATTER WHAT: VOTE DEMOCRAT IN 2008!
Please pass this sentiment on to your fellow HillaryLanders. McCain and the Republicans are WRONG for the next 4-8 years.
Thank you very much jeffers!
I hope you give Obama a chance and learn more about him, too.
I'm really sick of how jaded we have all become to the abysmal antics of the right-wing talking heads like Fox News (and by 'we,' I mean those of us with a conscience). Where is the outrage? It's nice to find it here, on the blogs, but where is it out there, in the three-dimensional world? I can't take it anymore when people react to these things with a tired sigh and a "oh, you know, that's just Fox News, it's not even worth it."
True, Fox News does not, technically, define news, but many unfortunate Americans happen to regard the station as a verifiable source of information. The fact that so many people are immune to the giant red flags of propaganda blasting out of that station should point to how we need to make the outrage more visible to this kind of toxic nonsense.
Thank you! Your comments are so important. The depths to which some people will sink continues to amaze me.
It strikes me as amazing to use this kind of campaign to defame Senator Obama from the far right. Nothing is sacred to those and nothing is so disrespectful to the victims of the Holocaust to use it against a candidate. It is the same "the end justifies the means" politics we have seen from the people that bless torture, rendition or NSL's. Especially when the attempt to legitimize internationally recognized crimes against humanities, so closely matches the political changes in Germany to destroy a constitutional republic and later dehumanized people through parliamentary actions. The problem to use a moment of somber remembrance, that is one of the sincerest celebrations to attack a candidate, adds to the list of tasteless, reprehensible behavior. The Republican Party prides itself of patriotism, militarism and flag pins as a passport of real Americanism, but does not have the same reference and education to stay away from such invectives.
Anybody catch this Obama "Just Words" vid?
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?RsrcID=2036
Yeah... your point?
Pretty revealing, eh?
I don't understand what makes people like you tick. A second rate conservative site that hates Obama because fear. Maybe it's your fear that makes you tick.
Live by the sword (exploit Holocaust) die by the sword.
EXACTLY.
Where is the outcry about Obama throwing out the Holocost in order to try and score some patriotic street cred.
The guy is a hack and got caught being the phony that he is. Calling him out on it does NOT denigrate his uncle's service in any way, it is just being honest about what Obama is trying to pull off.
What is he trying to pull off? Did you read the article you're blogging in response to?
There's a big difference between "misremembering" if you were being fired on by a sniper and "misremembering" which horrible concentration camp a relative helped free. What do you think Obama thought he had to gain by substituting Aushzwitz for Buchenwald?
This is a complete non-issue, and McCain's response shows why he will fare no better than Clinton in the GE. The public is sick of this opportunistic, cheap, ridiculous crap.
Once again the far left, inexplicably, finds a way to portray themselves as the victims. Obama lied about his uncle liberating Auschwitz. The Republicans called him on it. If anything it was Obama diminishing the history and pain of the holocaust by using it as a politcal tool AND lying about it. I suppose you'll say it was just a mistake. Would you give McCain the same leeway? If McCain made the same incorrect statement and the Huffington Post called him on it would you all be decrying the Huffington Post or John McCain? Yeah, thats what I thought. The hypocrisy of the liberal left continues to astonish me.
the far left? more like anyone with half an independent thought. moderate you are not. And no, if McCain said it , it would be a non-issue, just like this is. If they tried to make it an issue they'd look stupid.
Why do so many continue to baited by the same Republican trolls over and over again?
Have you no shame? Buchenwald was not much better. Please tell me what the big difference is between the two.
No, Obama didn't lie. He made a mistake. Lying is saying that Iraq had WMDs. Lying is saying we need to beat Al Qaida in Iraq or we'll be fighting them in the streets of Washington.
Are you insane, or just evil?
It's a lie to get a name wrong? But invading Iraq was merely a mistake?
Fox and Friends is a non-stop joke. A bad joke. Their insipid facial expressions belie their weak intellect on a daily basis. They don't even need to open their mouths for an observer to conclude that there is "nobody home".
Sadly, the powers that be at FOX actually approve of these moronic statements and the furor it causes. Anything to sell another mobility scooter or craftmatic bed or more Viagra to the typical FOX NEWS viewer.
Shame on them.
Yes, and many of us are still waiting for Faux Noise to suspend Liz Trotta for her stupid comments over the holiday weekend! Something tells me it's going to be a very long wait!!
Thanks for your post, Menachem--I have a very strong hunch that no one over at Faux Noise, or any ot the other right-wing media outlets has ever visited Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, or any of the other concentration camps in Europe. To refer to Buchenwald as merely a "labor camp" shows ignorance of the first degree--something we've come to expect from Faux Noise!!
My grandfather was a Navy navigator who served in the only US air fleet to sink a Japanese submarine in the Atlantic Ocean (as opposed to the Pacific... you know... where Japan is). The Japanese submarine I-52 was headed to Berlin with rubber, tin, opium, quinine, tungsten, molybdenum, and two metric tons of gold bullion. My grandfather wasn't in the plane that sunk it, he wasn't even awake when it happened. That doesn't diminish his service nor the historic record of his company.
My brother thought my grandfather served in a submarine and that's how he was able to sink a Japanese submarine.
Stories get mixed up or embellished and my grandfather died last spring. Only a National Geographic issue has the whole story. Parts of stories get replaced with more familiar aspects that might not be true. Would any of you call my brother a liar?
I wouldn't call him "Mr. President" either!
"Grecians"
I would call him the keeper of an imperfect story that some would investigate and some would take on its face, depending on time/inclination. No, your brother is not a liar. It is the stooopid appropriation of terms like "misspoke" by actual liars that gets ppl confused (conveniently I suppose).
George W. Bush's Grandfather, Prescott Bush, headed a financial syndicate that bankrolled, in the 1930s and 40s, many of the critical industrial corporations that made Hitler's Wehrmacht and "Final Solution" possible. For example, Prescott Bush financed Krupp Steel and German United Steel and I.G Farben.
Prescott Bush funded I.G. Farben to build a chemical plant used to convert coal to liquid petroleum fuel near Auschwitz, Poland because I. G. Farben liked and took advantage of the availability of slave labor there. I. G. Farben also produced the poison gas that was used in the extermination chambers at the death camps.
This firm was financed by our current President's grandfather, Prescott Bush. The funding of Nazi Germany by Prescott Bush and his associates was terminated after Congressional investigation, if my memory serves me right, in 1943. So there is ample evidence of these facts in the Congressional Record. You can read a summary of these facts in Kevin Phillips's book, "An American Dynasty" which is about the Bush family.
On my pile of books to read soon is "Conjuring Hitler - How Britain and America made the Third Reich" by Guido Giacomo Preparata, which is a recently published historical study that goes in detail into the relationships between U.S. and U.K. banking and the industrial renaissance of German Industry after WW II.
Thank you. FOX's efforts to score political punch against Obama by minimizing the atrocity of what happened at Buchenwald is disgusting. I don't understand why this network is still allowed to abuse the public airwaves.
This sums up my own feelings perfectly: "The men who liberated Buchenwald were heroes, plain and simple. That includes Barack Obama's great uncle....In their liberation of Buchenwald, they put an end to one of the most horrible concentration camps of the 20th century. We must honor them, just as we must remember each and every victim of the criminal Nazi regime.
To those who continue to use this story to damage Barack Obama, I have a simple question: have you no shame? You attempts to diminish his uncle's service for your own political gain says a lot more about you than it does about Barack Obama."
The fact that he was speaking on MEMORIAL DAY about his great uncle's feelings as a soldier liberating Buchenwald, just underscores the complete moral bankruptcy--or stupidity--of people who would gleefully make political points from this. I can't understand it.
"FOX's efforts to score a political punch against Obama by minimizing the atrocity of what happened at Buchenwald is disgusting. "
I could not agree more! FOX should issue a full and unconditional apology to Buchenwald survivors and their families immeadiately. This is a new and disturbing low point for American journalism, and I can only hope that this type of shameless "reporting" is not the permanent legacy of the Bush administration.
FAUX NEWS CHANNEL reaches a new low every night. One cannot be shocked by their degradation, but in this case, shock would seem appropriate. Get ready for the fall campaign. It's going to be horribly, obscenely ugly.
Obama cited his great uncle's experience during a discussion of troop PTSS and the need for the country to help them deal with it. He made a mistake about which camp and quickly admitted it. (Maybe we're just so unaccustomed to having our politicians admit and correct mistakes that we don't recognize it as a strength?) The distorted reaction is disgusting but I'm afraid it's a hint of things to come.
This is where the bucks stops and it stops with the American people saying... no more!
We have seen the destruction of the sleazy, disgusting attacks, deceits and lies on this nation, leading us into such an unjust war....
if we do not speak out by writing letters, calling news organizations, whatever it takes, then they will continue to try and continue with the very same tactics the White House has and is still using against the American people.
No more... we must ALL become responsible for what happens in this country. Together our Voice becomes VERY LOUD !
I know God forbid someone makes a mistake and apologizes for that mistake, OMG, there must be something wrong with him, he apologized for making a mistake. It is sad, we ask our politicians to be honest and we ask them to admitt to making a mistake, and when they do, we are all over them like white on rice. I like that he admitts his mistakes, because it shows that he is human and that he is just like every body else, not perfect. In his stump speeches he tells you, that he is not perfect and all he can do is tell you what he thinks and be honest with you. I would think you would want some one who is willing to admitt when they are wrong, it shows humility. and a willingnes to make amends, but i guess everyone here who is saying that he is a plain liar remembers everything exactly as it happens and are perfect in every way and never misremember a story that your great uncle told you many many years ago. HMMMM
Oh my God. I'm speechless. I stopped watching Fox years ago so I have been out of touch with the wingnuts. I can't believe that they would actually try to attack a political foe by differentiating the horrors of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There truly is nothing too low for those cretins. :-(
It's my hope that the wingnuts at Fox News are take seriously only by other wingnuts whose minds are already made up.
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