AMERICAblog: Letter to the editor: "7 of my family members died at Dachau"
peteywheats
· 1 year ago
Serious problems with this commenting scheme. No wonder the comments have dropped by 90%. I just wanted to say, is it worse to confuse liberating Buchenwald with liberating Auchwitz, or to confuse going AWOL from the Alabama national guard with serving in Vietnam?
switched
· 1 year ago
Agree that this commenting scheme is difficult to work with. Also agree that confusing the names of concentration camps is somewhat understandable. Auschwitz is the most well known of the concentration camps as far as I know. I don't think there was any confusion with Dubya vanishing from the National Guard; you either thought it was ok (gop) or not a good thing (dem) but considering Dubya was trying to be Gore-light in 2000 few of us expected he'd recklessly invade countries. Maybe he should've spent more time in the National Guard...
okojo
· 1 year ago
.
Danton
· 1 year ago
I'm with Kim. My father was one of the first American soldiers to enter the cocentration camp at Flossenberg. It was not a "death factory" like Auschwitz, with gas chambers and crematoria and organized for mass killing. Nonetheless, tens of thousands of Jews died there. When my dad's unit arrived, there were bodes all over the place and men who were starving to death before his eyes. Some of the men under his command just totally broke down and were never the same. And he never forgot what he saw. "Extermination camp" or "concentration camp"--they were all dedicated to a single purpose.
dindc
· 1 year ago
Thank you, Danton & Kim for your reasoned and humane comments. My father was halfway around the world in the Philippines when Barack's great-uncle was liberating Buchenwald. He never spoke about what he experienced, what he saw, except for an occasional wry anecdote.
I take any reference to WWII very personally and I am thankful that people like your father, Danton, were there to liberate that camp. I know he is blessed for that.
They ALL needed to be liberated - I don't care what name is mentioned.
So what if Obama made a mistake. Why don't we focus in, especially after just just celebrating Memorial Day, what those young American men and women (along with our Allies) did in WWII?
Honestly.
okojo
· 1 year ago
I think it is important for both sides not to try to score political points, the Republican National Committee should not have some PR Hack use this to raise the histrionic level. Obama made a mistake, I am probably more critical of his statement, because I have taken a couple Holocaust/Shoah classes, and it is a subject I try to be pedantic about, but I think Obama's intent was fine.
Compare to Ronald Reagan, who said he help liberated Dachau to Yitzhak Shamir, when he never left the Continental US or some of the antics of many politician who tried to be everthing to everyone. As long as Obama states a correction, as his campaign staff did, it isn't that big of a deal. The Republicans should get all rabid on many other things and leave this one alone. I would suggest to Obama, just be careful when treading on this subject, not because of the horror, but because it is important to be accurate, and know the differences between the camps, like Dachau, Mauthausen, Treblinka and Auschwitz/Birkenau, etc.
If anything a leader of Western Industrial nation should learn from the Holocaust is that technology and industrial infrastructure played as much of a part as the incredible hatred. The hatred of the Jews in Europe have been there for 1500 years or more, but the technology to bring this hatred intent a reality wasn't there until the start of the industrial revolution, with a modern state, compare to the pograms of Tsarist Russia.
Bush_Bites
· 1 year ago
Guess I won't mention that the Republicans were the ones who didn't want to fight the Nazis.
Ooops.
okojo
· 1 year ago
That isn't totally true. Many Republicans were isolationists, but many were not like Henry Stimson, became Secretary of War for FDR in WWII, and there many Republicans who were big Anglophiles, when Britain was alone in 1940. Many of the Isolationists were from the Midwest, like Sen. Robert Taft, Sen. Gerald Nye etc.
PeteWa
· 1 year ago
Prescott Bush didn't fight the Nazis, he helped them. At all the camps.
okojo
· 1 year ago
Read about Fritz Thyssen, who was imprisoned by the Nazis, and who's holdings that Brown Brothers Harriman were managing in the US, including the bank and the board members that are in contention when this issue comes up with Prescott Bush. The Bush Family has its skeletons, but if Prescott Bush is guilty of helping the Nazis, than Averell Harriman is just as guilty, even though he probably did more at a very critical time to get aid to Britain in 1940.
hawkseye
· 1 year ago
Republican reaction to this is assinine and I expect this mode of juvenile campaigning will continue.
I recall, as a nine year old, seeing the front page of the San Francisco Call Bulletin, photos and headlines, when the first camp was liberated. It is indelibly printed on my memory, and it doesn't make a whit of difference which camp it was.
Are Republicans begging us to start talking about George Bush's grandfather and his role of supporting Nazi Germany?
I'm beginning to think, at this point, that someone needs to start raising the question as to why the Republican Party, in its present form, exists. It certainly isn't to serve this country, and its action in the last 20 years clearly indicates its sole objective is the absolute destruction of every institution in this nation.
tlsintx
· 1 year ago
wow. this really makes the GOPers appear petty, mean and desperate. go figure.
vwcat
· 1 year ago
The letter is so well written and gets the point across very forcibly without being mean. I hope it gets circulated throughout the news world where it gets aired and the arm chair generals and the gop can hang their heads in shame.
vwcat
· 1 year ago
1st Republic, that is not true. I rarely criticize Hillary for everyday kind of gaffes as we should all know what it's like to be exhausted. I would not jump on her for something like this as I save my harshness for when she is being divisive and trying to do harm. I have found that my negativity to Hillary began and got more harsh as the Hillary supporters got more and more aggressive. I began by responding to their nastiness and whether you want to accept it or not, Hillary's supporters were being nasty first and have been over the top alot more than Obama supporters. Most of us have found ourselves defending and responding to your beginning and keeping up with the negativity.
vkobaya
· 1 year ago
So which were the concentration camps that Halliburton built for Bush? Were they extermination camps or just slave labor camps? Not to mention that the Bush administration is the 4th Reich of America.
1stRepublic14thStar
· 1 year ago
Oh PLEASE, vwcat. NO ONE, and I man NO ONE is more vilified than Hillary Clinton, with the possible exception of her husband.
Here's an example: There's NO QUESTION that Hillary Clinton has been a long time fan of both the Cubs and the Yankees. Yet her opponents started the falsehood that she only became a Yankees fan when she moved to New York and became a Senate candidate. That lie just will not die -- it's routinely trotted out by a media that despises Clinton and her political opponents as "proof" of her dishonesty and ruthless ambition.
How many times have Hillary Clinton's enemies fallen back on the "Vince Foster was murdered" lie in order to "prove" Hillary Clinton's alleged ruthlessness? Every single investigation, even those by the most partisan Republicans, have confirmed that Vince Foster committed suicide, yet this "murder" falsehood, like the "fake Yankees fan" one, just won't die.
Today on Media Matters for America, there's a story about host Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough and the rest of the supporting cast describing Hillary Clinton as a "cat in a box" complete with "catty" sound effects, as well as calling her a "drunk party guest." The vast majority of the comments on this story are devoted to explanations of why Carlson is RIGHT to describe Clinton this way.
Alex Castellanos argued on CNN that it's OK to call Hillary Clinton a bitch because it's a correct description. Amazingly, he's still employed.
Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., a major player in the Obama campaign, compared the idea of figuring out how Obama could attack Clinton politically to O.J. Simpson's murder of his wife: "The natural reminder here is O.J. [Simpson]—how does an African-American candidate attack a white woman?"
Gee, where were the howls of outrage then? After all, Jackson suggested killing Hillary Clinton, didn't he?
I'm convinced I'm right -- no one is as abused as Hillary Clinton. Ordinarily, I'd be inclined to excuse Obama's mistake on this concentration camp story -- after all, he's correct on the big picture, and his mistake on the details was clearly inadvertent, as opposed to an intentional lie. But after the way Clinton's been beat up over her also clearly "no malice intended" remark about RFK, I'm not going to be as forgiving as I otherwise might have been.
PJT
· 1 year ago
Let me see if I have this straight...
1: Obama's great-uncle was a soldier who marched in to do is part in fixing a horror that Dubya's Grandpa enabled and financed. Check.
2: Obama is running for the opportunity to fix the horror that Dubya (and his enablers) created. Check.
Anyone see a trend here? The GOP/RNC better back off and fast, because I don't think this would work for them as a campaign thread (Obama: Carrying on the tradition of mopping up after the Bush family).
repubs love Tim Lahaye's Left Behind novels where "The view of Jews in the cycle is not explicitly derogatory and stereotyped. However it describes a world in which Jews are not as fully human as Christians." http://www.adl.org/Interfaith/left_behind_and_j...
jcgraham77
· 1 year ago
If Hillary had made the same mistake you all would have ridiculed her. Love the hipocrisy.
jcgraham77
· 1 year ago
The more I read the posts below the more you have lost total credibility in my eyes. I know Hillary is crooked as the rest, but you people are starry eyed and will follow Obama to the ends of the earth. Have some more koolaid.
switched
· 1 year ago
Seriously? I voted for Hillary in CA for god's sake... I like Clinton and Obama. Where do you find the stupid to come up with this koolaid concept? We need to defeat McBush and stop acting like the absurd little freepers. Focus Graham, Focus.
SociologistTina
· 1 year ago
Thank you for this post.
ShochuJohn
· 1 year ago
"The difference between Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen comes down to the fact that Auschwitz was specifically labeled an extermination camp, whereas the latter three are "merely" concentration camps where people were worked to death."
Point of historical fact: Auschwitz was a concentration camp. Auschwitz II/Birkenau, a few kilometers away, was the death camp.
debbsmith
· 1 year ago
Amazing how all of your Obama folks instantly say "Aw, no big deal" but with Hillary's sniper story you were screaming "SHE'S A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR."
I'm sure the McCain camp appreciates the way you've driven off Dem voters with your vicious attacks on Clinton. Your efforts will surely win you a kudo from President McCain.
1stRepublic14thStar
· 1 year ago
How understanding would you Obama supporters be of Hillary Clinton if she'd made the mistake Obama did? My guess is that you wouldn't be forgiving at all. No, instead, we'd be hearing about her purposeful lie, her willingness to say and do anything to get elected, her decision to trivialize a horrible act in order to further her own personal ambitions...
John Aravosis
· 1 year ago
If Hillary claimed that she was the one to have liberated the camp, then yes we'd criticize her. I don't recall anyone ever criticizing Hillary for getting a story right but getting a name wrong.
mirth
· 1 year ago
"...trivialize a horrible act in order to further...personal ambitions..."
Bish, pls.
Busboy
· 1 year ago
Nigel, Don't you know your Quran? Ahmadinejad must first offer Christians the option of becoming Muslims before he exterminates them...
All Comments
I take any reference to WWII very personally and I am thankful that people like your father, Danton, were there to liberate that camp. I know he is blessed for that.
They ALL needed to be liberated - I don't care what name is mentioned.
So what if Obama made a mistake. Why don't we focus in, especially after just just celebrating Memorial Day, what those young American men and women (along with our Allies) did in WWII?
Honestly.
Compare to Ronald Reagan, who said he help liberated Dachau to Yitzhak Shamir, when he never left the Continental US or some of the antics of many politician who tried to be everthing to everyone. As long as Obama states a correction, as his campaign staff did, it isn't that big of a deal. The Republicans should get all rabid on many other things and leave this one alone. I would suggest to Obama, just be careful when treading on this subject, not because of the horror, but because it is important to be accurate, and know the differences between the camps, like Dachau, Mauthausen, Treblinka and Auschwitz/Birkenau, etc.
If anything a leader of Western Industrial nation should learn from the Holocaust is that technology and industrial infrastructure played as much of a part as the incredible hatred. The hatred of the Jews in Europe have been there for 1500 years or more, but the technology to bring this hatred intent a reality wasn't there until the start of the industrial revolution, with a modern state, compare to the pograms of Tsarist Russia.
Ooops.
I recall, as a nine year old, seeing the front page of the San Francisco Call Bulletin, photos and headlines, when the first camp was liberated. It is indelibly printed on my memory, and it doesn't make a whit of difference which camp it was.
Iran's Ahmadi-nejad requests meeting with pope
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080527/tpl-uk-p...
I'm beginning to think, at this point, that someone needs to start raising the question as to why the Republican Party, in its present form, exists. It certainly isn't to serve this country, and its action in the last 20 years clearly indicates its sole objective is the absolute destruction of every institution in this nation.
I would not jump on her for something like this as I save my harshness for when she is being divisive and trying to do harm.
I have found that my negativity to Hillary began and got more harsh as the Hillary supporters got more and more aggressive. I began by responding to their nastiness and whether you want to accept it or not, Hillary's supporters were being nasty first and have been over the top alot more than Obama supporters.
Most of us have found ourselves defending and responding to your beginning and keeping up with the negativity.
Here's an example: There's NO QUESTION that Hillary Clinton has been a long time fan of both the Cubs and the Yankees. Yet her opponents started the falsehood that she only became a Yankees fan when she moved to New York and became a Senate candidate. That lie just will not die -- it's routinely trotted out by a media that despises Clinton and her political opponents as "proof" of her dishonesty and ruthless ambition.
How many times have Hillary Clinton's enemies fallen back on the "Vince Foster was murdered" lie in order to "prove" Hillary Clinton's alleged ruthlessness? Every single investigation, even those by the most partisan Republicans, have confirmed that Vince Foster committed suicide, yet this "murder" falsehood, like the "fake Yankees fan" one, just won't die.
Today on Media Matters for America, there's a story about host Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough and the rest of the supporting cast describing Hillary Clinton as a "cat in a box" complete with "catty" sound effects, as well as calling her a "drunk party guest." The vast majority of the comments on this story are devoted to explanations of why Carlson is RIGHT to describe Clinton this way.
Alex Castellanos argued on CNN that it's OK to call Hillary Clinton a bitch because it's a correct description. Amazingly, he's still employed.
Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., a major player in the Obama campaign, compared the idea of figuring out how Obama could attack Clinton politically to O.J. Simpson's murder of his wife: "The natural reminder here is O.J. [Simpson]—how does an African-American candidate attack a white woman?"
Gee, where were the howls of outrage then? After all, Jackson suggested killing Hillary Clinton, didn't he?
I'm convinced I'm right -- no one is as abused as Hillary Clinton. Ordinarily, I'd be inclined to excuse Obama's mistake on this concentration camp story -- after all, he's correct on the big picture, and his mistake on the details was clearly inadvertent, as opposed to an intentional lie. But after the way Clinton's been beat up over her also clearly "no malice intended" remark about RFK, I'm not going to be as forgiving as I otherwise might have been.
1: Obama's great-uncle was a soldier who marched in to do is part in fixing a horror that Dubya's Grandpa enabled and financed. Check.
2: Obama is running for the opportunity to fix the horror that Dubya (and his enablers) created. Check.
Anyone see a trend here? The GOP/RNC better back off and fast, because I don't think this would work for them as a campaign thread (Obama: Carrying on the tradition of mopping up after the Bush family).
Point of historical fact: Auschwitz was a concentration camp. Auschwitz II/Birkenau, a few kilometers away, was the death camp.
I'm sure the McCain camp appreciates the way you've driven off Dem voters with your vicious attacks on Clinton. Your efforts will surely win you a kudo from President McCain.
Bish, pls.