George Soros on Surviving the Holocaust and Witnessing Property Confiscation

These are pictures from 1944 of what happened to George Soros' friends and neighbors.

You're a Hungarian Jew who escaped the Holocaust by posing as a Christian.

And you watched lots of people get shipped off to the death camps.

Right. I was 14 years old, and I would say that that's when my character was made.

In what way? That one should think ahead, one should understand and anticipate events, and one is threatened. It was a tremendous threat of evil.

I mean, it was a very personal experience of evil.

My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours, who swore that you were his adopted godson.

Yes. Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.

That side. Yes. I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years.

Was it difficult? Not at all. Not at all.

Maybe as a child you don't see the connection, but it created no problem at all.

No feeling of guilt? No. For example, that I'm Jewish, and here I am watching these people go, I could just as easily be there, I should be there, none of that.

Well, of course, I could be on the other side, or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away.

But there was no sense that I shouldn't be there, because that was, well, actually, a 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.

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.

So I had no sense of guilt. Are you religious?

No. Do you believe in God? No.