Fact Check: Did George Soros Help Nazis Confiscate Jewish Property?

Elon Musk faced criticism this week for a comparison he made about George Soros, saying he reminded him of an X-Men comic supervillain Magneto, a character written as a Jewish Holocaust survivor.

Soros, a Holocaust survivor, was attacked online by the Twitter owner, who said separately that the Hungarian billionaire "hates humanity."

One tweet, left in response to Elon Musk's comparison, claimed that Soros had helped confiscate Jewish property during World War II.

The Claim

A tweet by conservative commentator Melissa Tate, posted on May 16, 2023, viewed 64,000 times, claimed that George Soros had admitted to "helping the Nazis confiscate Jews property."

The Facts

Melissa Tate's claim is without merit. Soros' early life was characterized by attempts to survive Nazi occupation in Hungary and avoid the glare of antisemitism even before the start of the war.

An online biography by the Open Society Foundations (which Soros founded) says that Soros, who was born in Hungary in 1930, escaped Nazi persecution of the Jews along with his family by securing false identity papers and concealing their backgrounds.

According to the 2002 biography Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire by Michael T. Kaufman (written with Soros' cooperation), his father, Tivadar, changed Soros' surname from Schwartz in 1936 to avoid the glare of growing antisemitism.

After the Nazi occupation of Hungary in 1944, pupils in Jewish classes (which included Soros) were sent to council offices to work as messengers for the Jewish Council. The body, also known as the Judenrat, organized the identification and registration of Jews, which ultimately led to labor and death camp deportation.

Soros was asked to send messages to people in several parts of Budapest, but Tivadar, upon reading the messages, told the then-14-year-old that they were, in essence, deportation orders to be given to a list of Jewish lawyers.

Tivadar instructed his son to send the messages but to warn these people that if they followed the instructions to report to the Jewish Council, they would be deported.

Soros said: "I remember one man I went to see who told me, 'You know, I have always been a law-abiding citizen—I haven't done anything wrong—so I have no reason to disobey this order, and I am sure that nothing terrible can happen to me.'

"And when I went back and told my father about it, we had another conversation about rules, what rules you obey, and what rules you break."

After Soros delivered the messages, Tivadar told him to stop working at the council.

Later during the conflict, Tivadar was able to secure identity papers and conceal the backgrounds of the family, and paid for Soros to stay with a man named Baumbach "ostensibly as his godson."

Papers for a young man named Sandor Kiss "who had been born into a Hungarian family in Romania and who had made his way to Hungary after the war stated" were given to Soros.

During that time, Soros accompanied Baumbach as he took inventory of a wealthy Jewish aristocrat, Mor Kornfeld. The book says that Soros was not involved in the confiscation of property: "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."

Newsweek found no evidence to the contrary regarding the explanation in Soros' biography.

Further,during a 1998 interview on 60 Minutes (referenced by Melissa Tate), Soros confirmed that he went on this encounter with a "protector" who had sworn that Soros was his adopted godson.

"Whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator. The property was being taken away, so I had no role in taking away that property..." he said.

The Soros biography criticized the interview, calling it a "bizarre television profile" claiming that Soros was: "Visibly dumbfounded by the line of questioning" about his childhood experiences and that "Soros could only manage to say that he had no role in the seizure of property and was merely a spectator."

The book notes that even after the family went into hiding, Tivadar continued to help other members of the Jewish community. Soros recounted that his father "rendered services to about fifty people."

The book says: "Some received documents, others help in finding housing or changing jewelry into foreign currency, although that came later. Some simply sought his advice on survival."

The comments on Twitter therefore grossly misrepresent the facts shared online, omitting the detail of Soros' story and, crucially, his lack of culpability.

A spokesperson for the Open Society Foundations told Newsweek: "George Soros is a Holocaust survivor who survived Nazi Hungary in hiding as a young boy.

"Allegations to the contrary are completely false and deeply offensive."

The character of Magneto, to whom Musk compared Soros, was rewritten during the 1980s as a Holocaust survivor.

Writer Chris Claremont, who made the character a Holocaust survivor, told Vulture in 2019 that Magneto's ethnicity was not explicitly stated in that initial rewrite. This background was, however, later canonized in the X-Men films and the comic book mini-series "Magneto: Testament."

Newsweek has reached out to SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter's press offices via email for comment, and Melissa Tate via a website contact form.

The Ruling

False.

George Soros did not help Nazis confiscate Jewish property. During the World War II, he was given a false identity to avoid Nazi persecution of Hungarian Jews. A man who was paid to pretend that he was Soros' godfather, and helped hide the then-14-year-old boy, was on one occasion ordered to take inventory of a Jewish aristocrat. Soros was brought along but was not involved in the confiscation.

Soros' family, before and during the war, made considerable effort to avoid persecution from antisemitic attitudes and government, and assist others in doing so.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team