Fact check: Social media users falsely link George Soros and the Nazis
Hannah Hudnall
USA TODAY
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.
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.