Fact check: Social media users falsely link George Soros and the Nazis
The claim: George Soros collaborated with the Nazis
Social media users are once again spreading false claims about billionaire George Soros.
"Isn't it weird how the Left keeps calling Trump a 'Nazi,' when the only person on today's political scene who actually COLLABORATED WITH REAL LIVE NAZIS is the Left's Sugar Daddy, billionaire George Soros?" reads a Nov. 6 Instagram post. It features a picture of Soros.
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The post garnered more than 200 likes in one day. Similar iterations have been shared on Instagram and Facebook.
The claim is false. Soros and his family, who are Jewish, escaped persecution during the Holocaust by using false identity papers. There is no evidence Soros aided the Nazi regime, which ended when he was 14.
USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment.
Soros did not aid the Nazis
USA TODAY previously debunked the claim that Soros was a Nazi in a separate fact-check.
Soros founded the Open Society Foundation in 1993 to help fund democratic and human rights groups around the world. Laura Silber, a spokesperson for the foundation, told USA TODAY via email that the claim he aided Nazis is "100% false."
Soros was born in Hungary in 1930 and survived the Holocaust, in which over 500,000 Jewish Hungarians were killed, according to the biography published on the billionaire's website. His family survived by acquiring false identity papers, which concealed their backgrounds, the biography says.
Soros was 13 years old when the Nazis occupied Hungary. During this time, he was sent to live with a "phony godfather" who at one point took him along to take inventory of a Jewish person's house, but Soros was not involved with confiscating their goods, The Washington Post reports. He was also sent to run errands at the Judenrat, a Jewish council forced to obey the Nazis' orders, but he didn't round up any Jewish people.
To the contrary, the Post reported that Soros did not participate when he was given a list of names of Jewish people and instructed to tell them to report to a location from which they would be deported.
Fact check: Moderna post makes false claims about Fauci, Gates, Soros, Epstein
The Nazi Party surrendered in 1945, when Soros was only 14 years old, and in 1947 he immigrated to England to study at the London School of Economics, according to the BBC.
Soros, who moved to the U.S. in 1956, openly supports the Democratic Party and has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Democrats.
Reuters previously debunked claims that a photo shows Soros wearing an SS uniform when he was younger. The picture shows Oskar Groening, a bookkeeper at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
The claim that Soros is a Nazi has been debunked by Reuters, PolitiFact, AP News and The Washington Post.
Our rating: False
Based on our research, we rate FALSE the claim that Soros collaborated with the Nazis. Soros and his family escaped persecution during the Holocaust by using false identity papers. There is no evidence Soros aided the Nazi regime during this time.
Our fact-check sources:
USA TODAY, Nov. 8, Fact check: False claim that George Soros has funded midterm voting machines
USA TODAY, Sept. 15, 2020, Fact check: Moderna post makes false claims about Fauci, Gates, Soros, Epstein
George Soros, accessed Nov. 8, The Life of George Soros
The Washington Post, Aug. 6, 2020, Five myths about George Soros
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed Nov. 8, Timeline of Events
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed Nov. 8, JEWISH COUNCILS (JUDENRAETE)
The BBC, May 31, 2018, Profile: Billionaire philanthropist George Soros
Reuters, Sept. 29, 2020, Fact check: False claims about George Soros
Reuters, June 18, 2020, Fact check: Photograph shows Nazi bookkeeper, not George Soros
PolitiFact, Feb. 10, 2020, No, George Soros wasn’t a Nazi soldier
AP News, Oct. 22, 2018, Photo depicting George Soros as Nazi soldier untrue
Politico, Jan. 28, Soros pours $125M into super PAC ahead of midterms
Open Society Foundations, accessed Nov. 21, Who We Are
Laura Silber, Nov. 21, Email exchange with USA TODAY
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: False claim that George Soros collaborated with the Nazis
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