Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
Claim
An excerpt of an old interview of George Soros – hedge fund manager turned philanthropist, is being shared online after he commented on India, PM Modi and Hindenburg’s report on Adani Group video. The viral video is shared with different posts raising questions about Soros’ role during the holocaust.
Archived link of the post can be seen here.
Fact check/Verification
We first tried to find more details of Soros’s youth and childhood. According to his biography published in his website, Soros was born in Hungary in 1930, and he lived through the Nazi occupation of 1944–1945. “His own Jewish family survived by securing false identity papers, concealing their backgrounds, and helping others do the same. As the Communists consolidated power in Hungary after the war, Soros left Budapest in 1947 for London, working part-time as a railway porter and as a night-club waiter to support his studies at the London School of Economics. In 1956, he emigrated to the United States, entering the world of finance and investments, where he was to make his fortune,” it read.
Newschecker then closely analysed the footage that is being circulated. We noticed a watermark on the left corner of the video indicating that the interview was part of a program titled ‘60 minutes’ broadcasted by CBS. The program was aired in 1998, and the interviewer was Steev Kroft, research revealed.
We found a longer version of the interview, which carried the exchange between Soros and Kroft where the latter asks Soros about his time in Hungary when he “went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.” When Soros confirms Kroft continues to question Soros and asks if he felt any guilt, that he “could just have easily been there” (in place of the others), to which Soros answers, “Of course I could be on the other side, or could be the one from whom this thing is being taken away, but, there was no sense that I should be there, because that was… Well actually,funny way, it’s just like in markets, that if I weren’t there, of course I wasn’t doing it…but somebody else would be taking it away anyhow and it was… whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. I had no role in taking away that property, so I had no sense of guilt.”
We also found another video going viral with the same claim, but carrying the full response of Soros. This video however, had a written transcript corresponding to Soros’s response. But on closely watching what Soros was saying and what was in the transcript, we noticed that in the transcript, “it’s just like in markets, that if I weren’t there, of course I wasn’t doing it …but somebody else would be taking it away anyhow ” was changed and “if I wasn’t doing it” was written instead, changing the meaning of the whole sentence.
We then researched further and keyword search indicated that the viral claim had been debunked by several international publications and fact checking websites in the past, including the Washington Post, and USA Today among others.
In a report titled ‘Five myths about George Soros’ published in August 2020, the Washington Post clarifies that the viral claim that George Soros helped Nazis was not true. “In a “60 Minutes” segment in 1998, the interviewer, Steve Kroft, asked Soros about any “feeling of guilt” he may have carried as a survivor of the Holocaust, because, “as hundreds of thousands of Jews were being shipped off to the Nazi death camps, a 13-year-old George Soros accompanied his phony godfather on his rounds, confiscating property from the Jews.” In the interview, Soros says that he did not participate in the confiscation and was merely brought along,” reads the article.
“While Soros was, as a student, sent to run errands at the Judenrat, a council of Jews whom the Nazis forced to do their bidding, he did not round up Jewish people. As per Soros’s recollection, when he was given a list of names, with instructions to tell them to report to a location from which they would be deported, his father said he should not tell them to go,” the report further said.
Thus, we can conclude that a video of George Soros’s 1998 interview is being shared out of context to indicate that he helped Nazis in confiscating the properties of jews.
Result: Missing Context
If you liked this and want to read more such fact checks then click here.
If you would like us to fact-check a claim, give feedback, or lodge a complaint, WhatsApp us at 9999499044 or email us at checkthis@newschecker.in. You can also visit the Contact Us page and fill out the form.
Authors
Pankaj Menon is a fact-checker based out of Delhi who enjoys ‘digital sleuthing’ and calling out misinformation. He has completed his MA in International Relations from Madras University and has worked with organisations like NDTV, Times Now and Deccan Chronicle online in the past.
