"I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps, and the story in my family is that when he came home, he just went into the attic, and he didn't leave the house for six months. All right? Now, obviously something had affected him deeply, but at the time, there just weren't the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain."If he took part in the liberation of Auschwitz, Obama's uncle must have served in the First Ukrainian Front (army group) commanded by Ivan S. Konev. After Auschwitz, he probably saw a lot more action and likely took part in the siege of Breslau, the Battle of Berlin, or the attack on Dresden in the closing days of the war.
Obama’s uncle, in the quote, is the same as ‘his sons’.
Both are in mythical terms. “It was the thought that counts.”