Home » You are free to criticize George Soros without being anti-Semitic (Part II)

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You are free to criticize George Soros without being anti-Semitic (Part II) — 46 Comments

  1. Readers interested in the many organizations receiving funds from Dr. Evil should consult the well-documented entry at the website Discover the Networks. The same leftists who dismiss the concerns over Soros as some kind of “conspiracy theory” (a convenient means of distracting attention away from unpalatable facts) generally describe the Koch brothers as conservative when they are, in fact, libertarian (and, as a result, mostly hostile to sensible policies on immigration).

  2. I have been trying to figure out why Soros does some of this stuff. I doubt pure philanthropy is behind it. I thought he at one time had an estate in Central America but I am unable to find any links to the story.

  3. If some person or group funds and organizes the migrant caravan, how are they different from someone who abets human trafficking? They must be breaking laws. If their office is in New York or Washington, that’s where the arrests should be made.

  4. Well, yet another case of “it ain’t broke so we’ll fix it good & proper!” To wit:

    https://Discoverthenetworks.org

    Sorry, j e. :>((

    I went there looking for something else, and when I got there, wham! what a nasty surprise.

    . . .

    Neo, you’ve done a little research there, haven’t you. *g* It’s interesting and you’ve backed it up well. Thank you.

    .

    I suppose I got the link to J.E. Dyer’s piece on the Facebook Purge here? There’s a long section devoted to an analysis of Soros’s strategies and aims there. I have no idea as to its validity, but if the facts are as she states, it’s an interesting theory.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/10/17/the-great-facebook-purge-soross-signature-tactics-and-the-crisis-in-social-media/

    In particular, the section entitled “The signature pressure tactics of George Soros.”

  5. I, for one, believe that Soros did a ton of good in the 90’s in Eastern Europe. He pretty much by himself set the basis of civil society there. Every kind of organization, from newspapers to children’s charities to civic associations to watchdog groups, got some small grant from his foundation, not to mention invaluable information about non-profit best practices. Before him there was nothing. He created some breathing room for an alternative to the often authoritarian and corrupt governments.
    But many things can change in 20 years. Is it due to a brain tumor, like in McCain’s case, or just the natural effect of old age? Or is it Conquest’s second law of politics? (but that applies to organizations, not people, so it doesn’t explain Soros’s change of heart).
    Actually, I seem to remember a time when Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders, the Red Cross, and many other such organizations stuck to their primary missions and at least tried to maintain an appearance of impartiality. But those times are long gone.
    The worst part, for me, is that those who dealt with the Soros Foundation in its heyday are now embarrassed and to some extent compromised by this association. The worst rabble-rousing media, echoing with anti-semitic and xenophobic cliches, are having a field day demonizing Soros and all his former associates (which, in the 90s, included every pro-Western personality; even Orban, before his change of course).
    Many brave people stuck their necks out. It looks like they got played. How and why? It’s still a mystery to me.

  6. It’s my understanding that Soros collaborated with the Nazis. Turning in other Jews to them and then robbing the Nazi’s dead victims. If true, his motivation is simple; guilt. His entire embrace of open borders with its inherent goal of the elimination of national and cultural identities, i.e. transnationalism is an attempt at atonement for his earlier mortal sin of collaboration with evil. His enmity toward America is simple as well, the United States is the foremost exemplar of nationalism, he has no alternative to imagining the United States to be “the main obstacle to a stable and just world order.”

    In his willful blindness to his continuing to support another form of evil… the irony is literally Shakespearean.

  7. Geoffrey Britain:

    Your understanding about that “collaborator” business is wrong, IMHO, although it’s a common meme on the right.

    Did you read Part I? I dealt that both in the body of the post (including links) and in several comments, in an exchange I had with other commenters (my most relevant comments are here and in particular here).

  8. @MB – Conquest’s Second Law “Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing.” Also called O’Sullivan’s Law. Examples given are the Ford Foundation and the Girl Scouts. I included Habitat for Humanity a decade ago.

    As for people being secretly or slyly antisemitic in their dislike of Soros, that is doubtless true for a few. Hell, some of them aren’t even secretive about it on some sites. But these sort of “change the subject” accusations are nearly always in the direction of branding conservatives as not simply wrong, but evil people.

    If we’re not evil, they have very few other arguments.

  9. I wondered why Soros hated Bush so much, and the answer to that may explain the changes that MB wonders about. Basically, he was opposed 100% to the invasion of Iraq and the mishandling of that war, and the way in which the politics of the country were also mangled. It is not a very interesting speech, being totally unremarkable in it’s opposition to Bush, which was almost boiler-plate in 2004; it is, however, enlightening as to Soros’ own state of mind

    https://web.archive.org/web/20090922223629/http://www.commondreams.org:80/views04/0928-16.htm

  10. <iI, for one, believe that Soros did a ton of good in the 90’s in Eastern Europe. He pretty much by himself set the basis of civil society there.

    I agree and was distressed to see his swing into leftist politics here.

  11. Forgot to add: I think he has simply transferred his hatred of Bush to the Republican Party and then to the US conservatives in general.
    Opposing Bush meant supporting Democrats, and he kept it up after Bush was gone, because he sees the Left as more in line with his views (which they are) and discounts the conservatives who ALSO objected to the war in Iraq.

  12. Interesting that no one seems to be going after Catholics on this caravan thing:

    Catholic agencies along the U.S.-Mexico border are bolstering refugee aid efforts as thousands of people in multiple migrant caravans continue to trek north through Mexico to the border. …

    Brenda Riojas, the media relations director for the Diocese of Brownsville, told CNA that Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley is also keeping an eye on the migrant caravan situation.

    “Sister Norma Pimentel (the executive director of CCRGV) and hundreds of volunteers (Catholics and other faiths communities) are continuing their day to day efforts at the Respite Center that has been receiving up to 550 to 600 people a day,” she said.

    “We are also in close contact with shelters on the Mexican side of the border and will be sending donations their way.”

    And this from the pastor of a Catholic church in El Paso:

    These caravan journeys are almost mystical in their total trust in the presence of an accompanying God. These prophetic journeys call us to an active hope, to transform our love into political action for the common good of all, to seek just solutions to complex, transnational human struggles. We can march to legislative offices to promote comprehensive immigration reform. We can support efforts at developing just and functional US-Central American economic programs that begin by addressing the needs of the poor, of farmers, of women and of children.

    But most importantly, we need to stand in solidarity with a movement of hope in and across the Americas that is affirming the rights of the marginalized and poor to take their rightful place in our diverse society. Our solidarity with caravans of migrants will show us that America can rise above smallness and be better. This solidarity celebrates that in all things hope wins.

    But Soros makes for a such handy bogeyman, doesn’t he?

  13. Ann:

    But the issue is not whether other groups are assisting the caravaners as they come towards the border, or whether they are planning to support and assist them after they get to this country. No doubt they are; the left certainly is, and many church groups have a history of that sort of thing. If people on the right are criticizing these groups for that, you probably wouldn’t read about it as news because it’s really not news. It’s ho-hum.

    The reason the criticism of Soros is covered is because the left thinks they can make a propaganda point with it. The propaganda point is: the right is anti-Semitic! This sort of thing is the charge: “By saying Soros is supporting the caravan throughout its journey, people on the right prove themselves to be anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists of a classic kind.”

  14. I engaged Soros in a short debate on his site back in 2004. His views are similar to those of Obama. And similar to many idealistic lefties. Their theme is that of the song, “It’s a Small World After All.” They believe that an “open world” where people mix freely and don’t threaten one another can be achieved. At least that’s what Soros told me. And Obama acted like he believed much the same.

    On the other hand, much of what they (Soros/Obama/ and other lefties) are enabling sounds more like the plan to destroy America as delineated by Dick Lamm in 2003. If you aren’t familiar with Lamm’s ideas you can read them here: http://michellemalkin.com/2008/02/09/i-have-a-plan-to-destroy-america-by-richard-d-lamm/

    Basically Lamm sees open borders, multiculturalism, political correctness, stifling of debate, pitting various groups against one another, and the use of foundation money to drive the agenda as the plan that will eventually destroy America. Soros seems to be pretty much enabling the plan. He would be nuts to tell people what he was really up to. Wouldn’t he?

  15. J.J.:

    If Soros (or anyone else) declares that the US is the “main obstacle to a stable and just world,” of course that person would want to destroy the US as it is now and/or change it very very radically.

  16. How strange that Soros was so opposed to George W Bush, considering how committed W and the entire Bush clan are to open borders. He seems to have profound misperceptions operating within his psyche.
    Moreover, drastic misperception leading to intense demonization of conservatives is common among leftists.

  17. “Quantum of Solice” was aimed at George Soros, as his first hedge fund was the QUANTUM FUND.

    Soros is anti-society.

  18. That article is by Judicial Watch, which bases its work on access to records it obtains through requests and court orders through the Freedom of Information Act

    Chris Farrell of Judicial Watch; “Soros-occupied State Department.”

    Do I need to explain why this is anti-Semitic?

  19. Yes, Manju, you “need to explain why this is anti-Semitic,” since it isn’t. Neo has extensively documented Soros’s clearly expressed views, which are congruent with the leftist orientation of large numbers of State Department career personnel.

  20. Interesting stuff. I am one of the first people to debunk conspiracy theories. I don’t believe in them primarily because the chances of maintaining operational security in a conspiracy involving more than only a few people are slim. Those involving hundreds or thousands of people are essentially zero.

    However, there is the phenomena of “fellow travelers” assisting and cooperating with one another. That appears to be the case with George Soros. He seems to be a profligate buyer of “progressive intellectual” credentials.

  21. On the issue of “Zionism”, I find myself uncomfortable. I understand completely the motivations of the European Jews in forming the state of Israel in the wake of WWII an the Holocaust. I admire what they have achieved there. Furthermore, the various nations and cabals that are opposed to Israel are despicable and hypocritical in what they do to advance their cause. So, my emotional sympathies are with Israel.

    Having said that, Israel was formed as a non-secular state exclusively for those of Jewish descent. Purely by definition, this is racism and Israel is a Theocracy. I fear that so long as Israel remains non-secular and exclusive, they will continue to be a lightning rod for attacks.

  22. Soros is not a Holocaust Survivor. He evaded it by pretending to be gentile and then turned in Jews,
    He is kapo scum.

  23. Having said that, Israel was formed as a non-secular state exclusively for those of Jewish descent. Purely by definition, this is racism and Israel is a Theocracy.

    Denmark was formed as as state for those of Danish descent, Sweden for those of Swedish descent, England for English descent. All have national religion. Are they also racist theocracies?
    Are you aware that Jewish national history is older than all of those three combined?

  24. I’m sure Israel being a lightening rod for antisemitic countries has nothing to do with it being chock full of people who fled antisemitic persecution in those countries. (Sarc)

    Being a Zionist and finding myself at times in conversation with anti Zionists, it’s fascinating how easily they ignite with rage in the subject. Although I’ve been told “You won,” by onlookers, it’s really exhausting and makes me concerned for my safety. So I’ve learned to watch for certain tells and slip away if I sense a confrontation.

    In fact, the whole anti Zionist thing is what caused my political conversion, since ‘progressive’ is one of the tells.

    Interestingly, Soros hid for over two years that he was the money behind the pseudo ‘pro Israel’ J Street Lobby. He’s none too popular with a lot of Jews.

  25. Israel is a foundationally Jewish state, but not an exclusively Jewish state. There are Christian and Druze and Muslim citizens who have full civic rights including the right to vote.

    Israel is surrounded by Arab majority states whose minorities are not treated as well as are Israeli minorities. For most of the area, sharia law is considered the foundation of law, although in some states it is more strictly applied than in others. If Israel were entirely secular (as many of its Jewish citizens are), it still would be hated by its neighbors, and this hatred is ethnic and religious, specifically aimed at Jews, whether observant or non-observant.

  26. Roy, I find no evidence that Israel was founded as a theocracy; still less that it is so today. And it certainly is in no sense “a state exclusively for those of Jewish descent.”

    The Foot of All Knowledge tells us https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theocracy :

    Theocracy is a form of government in which a deity, or religious institution, is the source from which all authority derives. The Oxford English Dictionary has this definition:

    1. a system of government in which priests rule in the name of God or a god.

    .

    From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel#Government_and_politics :

    Israel is a parliamentary democracy with universal suffrage. A member of parliament supported by a parliamentary majority becomes the prime minister—usually this is the chair of the largest party. The prime minister is the head of government and head of the cabinet.[368][369]

    [SNIP]

    The Basic Laws of Israel function as an uncodified constitution. In 2003, the Knesset began to draft an official constitution based on these laws.[10][373] The president of Israel is head of state, with limited and largely ceremonial duties.[368]

    Israel has no official religion,[374][375][376].

    Following a link in that article to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Laws_of_Israel , we see that

    The Basic Laws of Israel are the constitutional laws of the State of Israel, and can only be changed by a supermajority vote in the Knesset (with varying requirements for different Basic Laws and sections). Many of these laws are based on the individual liberties that were outlined in the Israeli Declaration of Independence.[1]

    These laws are listed further down on the page.

    .

    On the Israeli Declaration of Independence, as linked above:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Declaration_of_Independence

    The second major issue was over the inclusion of God in the last section of the document, with the draft using the phrase “and placing our trust in the Almighty”. The two rabbis, Shapira and Yehuda Leib Maimon, argued for its inclusion, saying that it could not be omitted, with Shapira supporting the wording “God of Israel” or “the Almighty and Redeemer of Israel”.[8] It was strongly opposed by Zisling, a member of the secularist Mapam. In the end the phrase “Rock of Israel” was used, which could be interpreted as either referring to God, or the land of Eretz Israel, Ben-Gurion saying “Each of us, in his own way, believes in the ‘Rock of Israel’ as he conceives it. I should like to make one request: Don’t let me put this phrase to a vote.” Although its use was still opposed by Zisling, the phrase was accepted without a vote.

    The whole page is of considerable historic interest.

    .

    Must one be Jewish (whether by religious practice or in virtue of Jewish ethnic ancestry)? See the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ page on this:

    http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/aboutisrael/state/pages/acquisition%20of%20israeli%20nationality.aspx

    Citizenship may be acquired by:

    Birth
    The Law of Return
    Residence
    Naturalization

    The page discusses each of these categories.

    .

    Further: Israel is a Jewish and democratic state (my boldface):

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_and_democratic_state

    The Israeli Declaration of Independence identifies Israel as a “Jewish State,”[3] In the sense that Jews as ethnicity[4] can exercise their right for self determination. It doesn’t give a Judaism any special status over other religions nor does it deny minority rights.[5]

    [SNIP]

    During the 1984 Knesset elections, religious ideas were brought up that were aimed at canceling the democratic character of Israel, and replacing it with a theocratic Halachic state….

    A Halachic state might be a theocracy:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halachic_state

    Halachic state is the idea of a Jewish state governed by Halakha, Jewish religious law.[1]

    But note that below that, the section entitled “Definition of a Jewish state in Halakha” is in fact without content; Wikipedia invites someone to present the, or a, definition.

    There is some support for (at least partial) governance according to Jewish religious law; see both of the articles just above. But as it stands currently, Israel is not even close to being governed by anything like Jewish religious law, let alone by clergy.

    .

    By the way, some of the McDonald’s in Israel do serve non-kosher food.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s_Israel

  27. Neo — I just left a rather long comment discussing what I believe are a few misapprehensions about Israel. But it appears to be in Spam Limbo. Could you please soothe the Spam-bot, if that is the problem (and if the comment is OK with you, of course).

    Thenks — Julie

  28. Shoah ‘survivor’ that worked for the SS? — Worse than a kapo?

    That’s not my idea of survival. Complicity is closer to the mark.

  29. blert; Avi:

    Have you read the links here? “Worked for the SS” is not what Soros did.

    Avi–are you aware of how many Jews evaded death by pretending for a while to be gentiles? Are you condemning them? It amazes me that anyone would think that was wrong under the circumstances, particularly if it was temporary.

    What’s more, Soros wasn’t raised as a Jew at all. So why should it matter to him?

    Lastly, Soros was born in August of 1930. When the Nazis invaded Hungary in March of 1944 he was thirteen years old. He turned fourteen during the war and was still fourteen when it ended. That is the period we were talking about.

    Read the links here if you want to deal with the facts.

    I can’t stand Soros, but I would rather deal with the facts about him, which are bad enough.

  30. Roy Nathanson:

    No, you are wrong.

    Israel has plenty of non-Jewish citizens.

    You are actually talking about the right of return, which means that people who are Jewish are allowed to emigrate there and become citizens. That’s all it means. And it is not racial at all. Here’s how it works:

    The Law of Return is legislation enacted by Israel in 1950, that gives all Jews, persons of Jewish ancestry up to at least one Jewish grandparent, and spouses of Jews the right to immigrate to and settle in Israel and obtain citizenship, and obliges the Israeli government to facilitate their immigration. Originally, the law applied to Jews only, until a 1970 amendment stated that the rights “are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew”. This resulted in several hundreds of thousands of persons fitting the above criteria immigrating to Israel (mainly from the former Soviet Union) but not being recognized as Jews by the Israeli religious authorities, which on the basis of halakha recognize only the child of a Jewish mother as being Jewish, or a proselyte to Judaism. Moreover, some of these immigrants, though having a Jewish grandparent, are known to be practicing Christians. People who would be otherwise eligible for this law can be excluded if they can reasonably be considered to constitute a danger to the welfare of the state, have a criminal past, or are wanted fugitives in their countries with the exception of persecution victims. Jews who converted to another religion can also be denied the right of return. Since its inception in 1948, over three million Jews have immigrated to Israel.

    You can read much more detail about it here. It includes converts, by the way, even Reform converts (although Orthodox rabbis don’t recognize those as proper conversions).

    Not racial.

    And by the way, if you look at this site, you’ll see that MANY countries have a right of return, many of them based totally on ethnic origin. But no one seems to give a hoot about that, or calls them racist.

    And Israel is not a theocracy.

    There are a LOT of misconceptions about Israel, and Jews, floating around.

  31. And this from the pastor of a Catholic church in El Paso:
    These caravan journeys are almost mystical in their total trust in the presence of an accompanying God. These prophetic journeys call us to an active hope, to transform our love into political action

    Many years ago, when I still attended Mass, my Catholic Church had a fund raiser. I was asked to contribute by a friend and fellow parishioner. I did and hoped that the money would go to help build a Catholic school as the planned city of Mission Viejo, CA had a parcel of land dedicated to churches and the Catholic church occupied only half of the parcel. There was plenty of room for a school, at least an elementary school. Instead the donations went to Santa Ana to support Mexican children, probably many the children of illegals although that was 40 years ago.

    I told my friend and the pastor, who I knew quite well, that the next time they asked for money, aside from the weekly collection, it had better be for a school if they wanted anything from me.

    Eventually, my children attended a private school organized by an Episcopal priest who was a retired headmaster. About 20 years later, the Catholic parishes began to build schools as they realized parents were willing to help fund them. My children, by that time, were adults.

    The Catholic Church has gone overboard on leftist politics and I do not doubt that the present Pope told Michael Moore that Capitalism is a sin, as he reported.

  32. Soros yms aided and abetted the killing of Jews and the confiscation of their property.
    He was not like Schindler’s Stern.
    On your prior posting you incorrectly conflated Kapos from concentration camps with death camps.
    If you don’t like kapo I’ll use the more appropriate term – Feld Hure.

  33. “It is not a very interesting speech, being totally unremarkable in it’s opposition to Bush, which was almost boiler-plate in 2004; it is, however, enlightening as to Soros’ own state of mind”.
    Indeed, it’s a very relevant read. Now I see when he changed his mind, some time between 2001 and 2003.
    I don’t understand, though, why the Iraq war had such a big impact on him. The war was badly managed, true. But the decision to go to war was bi-partisan, being supported by the New York Times and Blair as well as Bush.
    The Times wasn’t enthusiastically in favor, but gave it as much approval as they could muster for any right-wing policy initiative; as if, for example, Bush had restarted the space program and put a man on Mars.
    Maybe this is what Soros meant by writing “For 18 months after 9/11 he managed to suppress all dissent”? This is mere hyperbola. The opposition to the war was quite strong from the beginning, though maybe not among the serious people.
    And when writing “I am afraid that he is leading us in a very dangerous direction. We are losing the values that have made America great” he’s just repeating leftist boilerplate. There is no comparison between Bush and, say, Putin. There was no atmosphere of intimidation against leftists at that time, nothing comparable to the hounding of rightists in US universities and big companies nowadays. They were just pissed because not everyone agrees with them.
    Sounds like Soros gave in to the temptation of thinking that US democracy is in danger and only he can save it. And because, after all, he is a multi-billionaire and genuinely smart, nobody could persuade him that he was wrong, once he set his mind to it.
    I’m still curious, though, what led to this. Brain tumor? Traumatic divorce? Was he misled by his entourage or peers? Did Democrat grandees make an irresistible offer? Did Kerry beg on his knees? Or did they treat him with just the right amount of contempt, to induce a desire to prove himself (reverse psychology)?
    Or was he already a Democrat sympathiser, the Democrats pulled on his heart strings (democracy under threat, it’s now or never) and he succumbed to their siren song and went all in?
    From his speech I can tell that he considers himself an original and independent thinker. Maybe such people are the most suggestible, but I’m still curious how they got to him.

  34. Avi:

    If you read the links I gave I don’t see how you could keep making that claim. I am going to put some of the relevant parts right here in this comment, and I have bolded some of the most important parts:

    Kaufman addressed the claim that Soros was involved in confiscating Jewish property in his book, Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire (Knopf, 2002).

    While it’s true, 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:

    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 [Soros’s assumed identity]. Among his practical concerns was to make sure that no one saw him pee.

    George’s father, Tivadar Soros, provided a similar account of the incident in his 1965 autobiography, Masquerade: Dancing Around Death in Nazi Occupied Hungary (note: Tivadar Soros gave the name of the ministry official as “Baufluss,” but Soros confirmed to us that the correct name is Baumbach):

    Baufluss was charged by the ministry with inventorying confiscated Jewish estates. He was home only at weekends; the rest of his time he spent taking inventory in the provinces. During the week George passed his time alone in Baufluss’ s apartment. Lacking anything else to do, he caught the attention of some of his schoolmates, who lived in the building across the way. Communicating by hand signals, they seemed surprised to see him holed up in somebody else’s house. The following week the kind-hearted Baufluss, in an effort to cheer the unhappy lad up, took him off with him to the provinces. At the time he was working in Transdanubia, west of Budapest, on the model estate of a Jewish aristocrat, Baron Moric Kornfeld. There they were wined and dined by what was left of the staff. George also met several other ministry officials, who immediately took a liking to the young man, the alleged godson of Mr Baufluss. He even helped with the inventory. Surrounded by good company, he quickly regained his spirits. On Saturday he returned to Budapest.

    “He even helped with the inventory,” Tivadar 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 a “collaborator” after all, but given that it occurred on only one occasion, and that Soros was under an imperative to convincingly play the part of Baumbach’s godson while in the company of the actual Nazi collaborators, it doesn’t fly.

    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.

    Did Soros Serve Jews with Death or Deportation Notices?

    Another “Nazi collaborator” trope holds that young George Soros helped send fellow Jews to their deaths by delivering deportation notices on behalf of Budapest’s Jewish Council (Judenrat in German), an organization tasked by the Nazis with helping enforce Nazi policies on the Hungarian Jewish population:

    People Soros deported to Auschwitz

    Soros served Jews with “death notices” to go to Auschwitz
    https://t.co/mWVzcN2SlJ:

    — KellyLeeMedia (@jasian12345) August 23, 2017

    YOUNG SOROS delivered notices for Nazis informing Jews of deportation
    Later promoted to listing their confiscated property
    ‘Happiest youth’

    — armageddon #bluehand (@davis_blackwood) November 15, 2016

    However, as in the case of the “confiscation” rumors already discussed, here we find innocuous facts about George Soros’s adolescence twisted and exaggerated into a grotesque lie. According to Soros’s father, school-age Jewish children were required to run errands for the council. Among those errands (he came to find out) was delivering deportation notices to prominent Jews. But although George did, in fact, spend all of two days as a Jewish Council errand boy, he didn’t perform his assigned tasks exactly as ordered, taking it upon himself to warn the recipients of the notices that they ought not to comply:

    As Jews couldn’t go to school any more and their teachers couldn’t teach, they were ordered to report to council headquarters. The children were enlisted as couriers under the command of their teachers. My younger son, George, also became a courier. On the second day he returned home at seven in the evening.

    ‘What did you do all day?’

    ‘Mostly nothing. But this afternoon I was given some notices to deliver to various addresses.’

    ‘Did you read what they said?’

    ‘I even brought one home.’

    He handed me a small slip of paper, with a typewritten message:

    SUMMONS

    You are requested to report tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock at the Rabbinical Seminary in Rokk Szildrd Street. Please bring with you a blanket, and food for two days.

    THE JEWISH COUNCIL

    ‘Do you know what this means?’ I asked him.

    ‘I can guess,’ he replied with great seriousness. ‘They’ll be interned.’

    Children are often good guessers. I wondered whether he knew what being interned meant. Did this child of mine realize that these people would be deported to Germany and very possibly murdered? I felt too ashamed of the world I had brought him into to enlighten him.

    ‘The Jewish Council has no right to give people orders like that,’ I told him. ‘You are not to work there any more.’

    ‘I tried to tell the people I called on not to obey,’ he said, clearly disappointed that I wouldn’t let him work any more. He was beginning to enjoy his career as a courier: it was all a big adventure.

    Did Soros Say Helping the Nazis was the Happiest Time of His Life?

    In a foreword George Soros wrote for a 2011 reprint of Masquerade, he described the ten months of the Nazi occupation as “the happiest times of my life”:

    I was fourteen years old. We were in great peril, but my father was seemingly in command of the situation. I was aware of the dangers because my father spent a lot of time explaining them to me but I did not believe in my heart of hearts that I could get hurt. We were pursued by evil forces and we were clearly on the side of the angels because we were unjustly persecuted; moreover, we were trying not only to save ourselves but also to save others. The odds were against us but we seemed to have the upper hand. What more could a fourteen-year-old want? I adored and admired my father. We led an adventurous life and we had fun together.

    Predictably, this statement has been repurposed by Soros’s political enemies, usually in tandem with the false claim that he was a Nazi collaborator, as an admission of moral bankruptcy:

    But at no time did Soros say “helping Nazis” was the happiest time of his life. As he has reiterated on numerous occasions, what he was referring to was the exhilaration of surviving the most perilous situation he and his family would ever face, under the guidance and tutelage of his father, whom George Soros saw as a heroic figure. “It was his finest hour,” Soros said of his father in his 2007 book, The Age of Fallibility.

  35. Avi:

    No, I did not confuse death camps with other concentration camps in that post of mine on kapos. The post is not about death camps. The post is about the kapos in the work camps, where people were not gassed immediately but where death and torture were extremely commonplace and always a constant threat.

    And no, it’s not just that I “don’t like” the term “kapo.” Using it in any context except for actual kapos, or someone in a similar extremely dire position, is an abomination.

    And if “kapo” is the wrong word for you to use—and it is—then “Feld Hure” is just as bad. These are people for whom the only proper emotion is deep sympathy and horror at what they were forced to go through.

    As I wrote in my post on kapos:

    But the situation of the kapos in general, particularly those who had no previous criminal history, was so substantially different from that of virtually anyone in the US today, that I would say it is actually an abomination to compare the two, for the simple reason that kapos were concentration camp inmates under threat of torture and death. As kapos they received special privileges, and the most special one was life itself. In other words, their first motivation was to save their lives in a situation of evil so total and so horrific that in a very real way they were victims who were coerced into colluding with their oppressors.

    For Jews during WWII (except for the ones who were fortunate enough to leave Europe entirely, or to be in a neutral country) survival very often required at least some degree of collusion and definitely some degree of deception. Soros, a 13 and then 14 year old boy, colluded to a remarkably small degree.

    As far as the distinction between work camps and death camps goes, please see this:

    The SS and police authorities targeted certain categories of prisoners to be “annihilated through work.” Such prisoners were literally worked to death; that is, put to work under conditions that would directly and deliberately lead to illness, injury, and death. For example, at the Mauthausen concentration camp, the SS forced prisoners to run up the 186 steps out of the stone quarry carrying heavy boulders until they dropped, and then denied them the food, rest, or medicine necessary to recover. German Ministry of Justice officials sent approximately 20,000 persons convicted of crimes and serving sentences in Justice Ministry prisons into the concentration camp system in the autumn and winter of 1942-1943 in an agreement with Himmler that these prisoners were to be “annihilated through work.” Within four months, more than two thirds of these prisoners had been worked to death.

    The arbitrary nature of life and death in the concentration camps and the refusal of the SS camp authorities to provide sufficient food, medicine, time for rest, and proper clothing and equipment for a life of hard manual labor made it appear to many concentration camp prisoners that “annihilation through work” was the goal for all prisoners.

    As the tide of war turned against Germany in 1942-1943, the need for labor increased and the ability of the Germans to extract laborers from the occupied Soviet Union decreased due to military defeat. The concentration camp administration sought to induce camp commandants to take measures to prolong the lives of their forced laborers, who in 1944 were becoming a more precious commodity. Nevertheless, the camp commandants found it difficult to change ingrained and ideologically reinforced habits of treating prisoners in such a way as to increase the rate of death; for the SS, the prisoners remained “the enemy behind the wire.”

    Despite marginal decreases in the death rates in the camps in the summers of 1943 and 1944, prisoners continued to die in great numbers. In the killing centers in 1943-1944, where forced labor was never the primary purpose, the death rate, of course, did not decrease. After the colossal German defeats in the summer and autumn of 1944, the death rate of the laborers in the all camps climbed astronomically.

  36. For a year or two before she escaped from Anschluss Austria – first to Yugoslavia, then Palestine – my mother’s light brown hair and blue eyes allowed her to sometimes passed as gentile, ride Vienna streetcars, etc. One of her brothers somehow survived 3 years in various death camps. None of us ever asked him how he managed this. One did what one had to do.

  37. Just curious, do we know for sure 1930 was the year he was born?

    Paperwork was a bit iffy in that era.

  38. Manju – I would love for you to explain why that is anti-Semitic. As far as I can see, Chris Farrell didn’t say anything about Soros being Jewish, but people writing the story up kept inserting it.

    Maybe the problem is that you don’t read very closely, and can be easily dragged around by the nose by clever writers.

    As the saying goes – if you can hear the dog whistle, you’re the dog.

  39. No, the problem with manju is that he is a dishonest troll. Not holding my breath waiting for him to condemn Obama for repeatedly inviting the murderous anti Semitic demagogue Al Sharpton to the White House for private meetings.

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