I have recently run across accusations that George Soros was a Nazi collaborator. Many comments to The Hill article Protesters shut down Bernie Sanders rally made the accusation.
These accusations, which I had not heard before, led me to do a little research. I found the Media Matters article Beck falsely accuses Soros of Nazi collaboration on Kristallnacht anniversary.
In Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire – a book cited by Beck during today’s program — Michael T. Kaufman detailed Soros’s reaction during the interview, as well as Soros’ actions in Nazi-occupied Hungary:
While he was living with Baumbach as Sandor Kiss, an event occurred that more than a half a century later would become the basis of charges that George Soros, the international financier and billionaire, had somehow collaborated with the Nazi occupiers of his homeland and had exploited his fellow Jews. The issue was raised in a bizarre television profile and interview of Soros aired on the CBS television program 60 Minutes in December of 1998. In the segment, Steve Kroft, the interviewer, noted with prosecutorial gusto that George’s father had “bribed a government official to swear that you were his godson,” and added that this survival strategy “carried a heavy price tag.” For, he continued, “as hundreds of thousands of Jews were being shipped off to the Nazi death camps, a thirteen-year-old George Soros accompanied his phony godfather on his rounds, confiscating property from the Jews.” Visibly dumbfounded by the line of questioning, Soros could only manage to say that he had no role in the seizure of property and was merely a spectator. To underscore Kroft’s point, film footage showed masses of Hungarian Jews being led away at gunpoint.
This is what actually happened. Shortly after George went to live with Baumbach, the man was assigned to take inventory on the vast estate of Mor Kornfeld, an extremely wealthy aristocrat of Jewish origin. The Kornfeld family had the wealth, wisdom, and connections to be able to leave some of its belongings behind in exchange for permission to make their way to Lisbon. Baumbach was ordered to go to the Kornfeld estate and inventory the artworks, furnishings, and other property. Rather than leave his “godson” behind in Budapest for three days, he took the boy with him. As Baumbach itemized the material, George walked around the grounds and spent time with Kornfeld’s staff. It was his first visit to such a mansion, and the first time he rode a horse. He collaborated with no one and he paid attention to what he understood to be his primary responsibility: making sure that no one doubted that he was Sandor Kiss. Among his practical concerns was to make sure that no one saw him pee. [Page 37]
I also found the Snopes commentary on snopes.com > Urban Legends > Politics > George Soros, Nazi collaborator to be interesting reading for some back and forth on the topic.
You might also want to read the WikiPedia article on George Soros.
Soros was 13 years old in March 1944 when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary.[20] When Jewish children were barred from attending school by the Nazis, Soros and the other schoolchildren were made to report to the Jewish Council, which had been established during the occupation. Soros later described this time to writer Michael Lewis:
The Jewish Council asked the little kids to hand out the deportation notices. I was told to go to the Jewish Council. And there I was given these small slips of paper…. It said report to the rabbi seminary at 9 a.m…. And I was given this list of names. I took this piece of paper to my father. He instantly recognized it. This was a list of Hungarian Jewish lawyers. He said, “You deliver the slips of paper and tell the people that if they report they will be deported.”[21]
Soros did not return to that job, but instead went into hiding the next day. Later that year, at age 14, Soros lived with and posed as the godson of an employee of the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture. The official was at one point ordered to inventory the remaining contents of the estate of a wealthy Jewish family that had fled the country; rather than leave the young Soros alone in the city, the official brought him along.[22] The next year, 1945, Soros survived the Battle of Budapest, in which Soviet and German forces fought house to house through the city.