Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama admitted on Tuesday that he misspoke when he said during a Memorial Day speech that his uncle, Charles Payne, had participated in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.

Obama had made the Auschwitz reference in a Memorial Day speech on Monday.

Obama stated that his great uncle had been among those who helped to free prisoners from the Auschwitz death camp in Poland during World War II.

"I had an uncle who was ... part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps," Obama said.

"And the story in our family was is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn't leave the house for six months," he said.

To highlight his family’s history of military service, Obama spoke of his grandfather’s military record and said his uncle “was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps."

The Republican National Committee quickly pointed out that the Soviet Union's Red Army had liberated Auschwitz in 1945, not American forces.

Barack Obama campaign released a statement saying that Obama’s error was a simple mistake.

"Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.