[Vox, Snopes.com]
“Donald Trump Jr. suggested George Soros is a Nazi. [He] is more than his father’s right-hand man — he’s his most important link to the conspiratorial far right.”
“And as the 2018 election heats up, many of Trump Jr.’s tweets center on billionaire and longtime progressive donor George Soros. Specifically, they focus on a conspiracy theory regarding the Hungarian-born Jewish investor: that he’s a Nazi.”
“On May 29, Trump retweeted a bizarre claim arguing that Soros was a “nazi who turned in his fellow Jews.” Perhaps more bizarrely, the tweet was written by Roseanne Barr, the conspiratorial comedian and actress. Before Barr’s eponymous television show got canceled because of a racist tweet, her tweets covered the conspiracy theory gamut from MK Ultra to Pizzagate to 9/11 trutherism — and, of course, Soros the Nazi.”
“And it’s definitely not just Donald Trump Jr., and it’s not taking place just on Twitter. Conspiratorial allegations about Soros’s alleged Nazi ties are all over the internet, and as Soros-funded foundations gear up for the midterms, the rumors are gearing up too.”
“Though a GOP donor in the 1980s and 1990s, Soros has been the right’s most feared opponent since he spent more than $25 million to defeat George W. Bush in 2004, leading one conservative website to call him “a prolocutor in the congregation of Moloch.” Disgraced former House Speaker Dennis Hastert even alleged that Soros’s fortune came from financing drug cartels overseas. Since then, Soros has spent billions on (largely progressive) causes from Ebola prevention to opposing torture and protecting LGBTQ rights abroad, and has donated to Democratic Party causes like Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.”
“Before George Soros became a globally recognized billionaire — and boogeyman of the far right — he was a Jewish child growing up in Nazi-affiliated, and ultimately Nazi-occupied, Hungary.”
“Hungary — then a monarchy under the reign of Regent Miklós Horthy (his full title was “His Serene Highness the Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary”) before he was deposed by Nazi Germany in 1944 — was highly anti-Semitic even before joining the Axis powers in the early days of WWII. Fascist political parties, most notably the Arrow Cross Party, modeled themselves on the Nazi Party, including a promise to find a “solution of the Jewish question.” The Hungarian state responded to the popularity of fascist anti-Semitism, passing racial laws similar to Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Laws that forbade intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews and limited the jobs Hungarian Jews could legally hold.”
“By 1941, the year Soros celebrated his 11th birthday, Hungary had begun deporting Jews, 20,000 that summer alone, to the Nazi-controlled city of Kamenets-Podolsk in Ukraine, where they were murdered en masse by Nazi Einsatzgruppen — mobile killing units.”
“And while the deportations were stopped briefly when Horthy became convinced the Nazis would lose the war, a Nazi-staged coup gave power to the Arrow Cross and fueled the deportation and murder of thousands of Jews.”
“This was the world into which Soros was born. In fact, his name was originally George Schwartz — his parents changed their last name to Soros (which means “next in line” in Magyar, the native language of Hungary) in 1936 in an effort to appear less Jewish and more Hungarian in a country becoming increasingly anti-Semitic.”
“In 1944, Tivadar, Soros’s father, obtained papers giving his immediate family entirely new Christian identities, and decided to split up the family so that if one Soros were caught, the rest might survive the war. George became Sandor Kiss and went to live with a Hungarian agricultural official, whom he pretended was his godfather.”
It was also 1944, “the year Soros turned 14 while living with a Hungarian official whom his father paid to protect him, that became the centerpiece in the “George Soros is a Nazi” conspiracy theory.”
“In 1998, George Soros appeared on 60 Minutesand was interviewed about his experiences in Nazi-occupied [Hungary].”
“During the interview, Soros discussed his experiences living with that Hungarian official — including allegations of confiscating the property of Jews who had already been forced out of their homes. And it’s this interview that has fueled countless allegations that Soros was a “Nazi collaborator.””
—
“The 60 Minutes interview is problematic in many regards, not least because Soros’s testimony comes across as confused and contradictory. After assenting to Kroft’s (inaccurate) statement that he “helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews,” a minute later Soros says he was only a spectator and played no role in that confiscation:”
Kroft: “My understanding is that you went … went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.”
Soros: “Yes, that’s right. Yes.”
Kroft: “I mean, that’s — that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?”
Soros: “Not, not at all. Not at all. Maybe as a child you don’t … you don’t see the connection. But it was — it created no — no problem at all.”
Kroft: “No feeling of guilt?”
Soros: “No.”
Kroft: “For example, that, ‘I’m Jewish, and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be these, I should be there.’ None of that?”
Soros: “Well, of course, … I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was — well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in the markets — that if I weren’t there — of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would — would — would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the — whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the — I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.“
“While it’s true, [Soros’s biographer, Michael T. Kaufman] wrote, that one of the jobs delegated to young George’s temporary protector (a Hungarian bureaucrat named Baumbach) was taking inventory of Jewish properties already confiscated by the Nazis, the extent of Soros’s participation was accompanying Baumbach on one of those assignments”.
““He even helped with the inventory,” [George Soros’ father] Soros wrote. It’s a detail one doesn’t find in Kaufman’s book. Some may rush to cite this as proof that Soros was indeed a “collaborator,” but given that it occurred on only one occasion, and that Soros was under an imperative to play the part of Baumbach’s godson while in the company of actual Nazi collaborators, it demands stretching the meaning of “collaborator” beyond all reasonable limits.”
“Moreover, these biographical passages demonstrate that Steve Kroft’s claim on 60 Minutes that Soros “accompanied his phony godfather on his appointed rounds, confiscating property from the Jews” is flat-out false. Tivadar Soros wrote that most of young George’s time under Baumbach’s care was spent alone in the latter’s apartment. Both Tivadar and Kaufman report that George only resided with Baumbach for a short time — a matter of weeks — before Tivadar, concerned that his son’s real identity was in danger of exposure, shipped him off to spend the summer of 1944 with his mother (who herself was living under an assumed name at a lakeside resort some distance from Budapest). George Soros spent no further time with Baumbach.”
Read more: George Soros is not a Nazi, explained and Was George Soros an SS Officer or Nazi Collaborator During World War II? (archived)
Related: Steve Kroft’s 60 Minutes report with George Soros – Full transcript and video
2021-week26
