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Soros György |
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Daily Mail 2000 augusztus 13-ai száma egy cikket írt Soros Györgyről. Gondoltam többeket érdekel, ezért kiraktam a webre. Bocsánat a rossz és néha helytelenül írt szavakra, de a számítógépem csak ennyire tud 'olvasni'. (akik értenek hozzá: beszkennelt cikkről van szó, amit OCR-ral konvertáltam TXT-vé) Idő hiánya miatt jobban nem javítottam ki kézzel, de azért remélem így is érthető. A book by George Soros's father has
lain forgotten for decades. Soon to be republished, it tells the
remarkable tale of how Tivadar Soros rescued his son from the Nazis
and raised him to become one of the most powerful men in the
world.
In the spring of 1944, after the
Germans had invaded Hungary, George Soros spent a day
delivering invitations to Jewish homes in Budapest. That
night, he showed one to his father, Tivadar. 'We invite
you to present yourself tomorrow morning at 9am at the
premises of the Rabbinical Seminary in Rokk Szilard
Street,' it read. 'Please bring a blanket and food for
two days.' Across the city, other young Jewish boys were
distributing similar letters, sent on the instructions
of the Nazis.'Do you know what this invitation means P
Tivadar asked his son. 'Yes,' said the boy
seriously.' At a guess, I'd say they will be interned.'
Tivadar was shaken. How much more did 14-year-old George
understand? Did he realise that people who accepted the
invitation would be deported and almost certainly
killed? Did he know they were Jewish lawyers, like his father!
For a moment, Tivadar felt shame for the deeds of his
century. Then, shaken by the insight of his blond son,
he decided it was time to act. For the next 10 months,
until the Nazis were driven out of Hungary by Russians,
the Soros familyTivadar, his wife Elizabeth and their sons
George and Paul - used forged documents to disguise
themselves as Christians. They lived apart, rarely
meeting and never acknowledging that they were related.
The risks were huge: half a million Hungarian ,
Jews were sent to extermination camps. Only
200,000 or so, herded in the Budapest ghetto, were
spared liquidation. Of those, more than half were dead
by the end of the war. That all four of his family
survived is a remarkable tribute to the resourcefulness
and courage of Tivadar Soros. It has also, in some
measure, played a part in all our histories. For
George, the boy with an understanding beyond his
years, would go on to become perhaps the most powerful
private investor the world has ever known; the man who,
nearly 50 years later, in 1992, would lead a %6 billion
attack on sterling which would send the pound crashing
out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. The
manoeuvre made Soros more than Font 600 million, which
equated to a loss of ~12 for every person in Britain.
Many believe it also cost the Tories the next election.
Looking back, it is hard to overestimate the
impact of the Holocaust on the young George Soros.
In the dark months of 1944, he learnt to hold his nerve
when his life depended on it. Significantly, he even
came to enjoy his knifeedge existence. Later, he described the
year he spent in hiding as the happiest of his life. g
had a father whom I adored, who was in command of
the situation, who knew what to do and helped
others,' he recalled. 'We were in mortal danger,
but I was convinced that I was exempt. For a
14-year-old, it was the most exciting adventure
that one could possibly ask for.' Tivadar, dilettante in
his job as a lawyer, worked tirelessly to help his
family and other Jews survive. It was, says his son, his
finest hour'. Many years later, in the early
Sixties, Tivadar published an account of his
experiences. An idealistic man, he had long been a
supporter of Esperanto, the language invented at
the end of the 19th Century to unite people across
languages and cultures; as a young man in Hungary, he
had edited an Esperanto journal, Literatura Mondo. When
the time came to write his wartime memoir, Maskerado:
Dancing around Death in Nazi Hungary, he chose to
write it in Esperanto. The book was
published in 1965, by which time Tivadar was living in
New York. Just three years later, he was dead. For the
next 30 years, his book remained almost unknown; even in
Esperanto circles, few made the connection between
Tivadar Soros and his famous son. This autumn, all that
will change when Majkerado is finally published in
English. Before then, however, it is possible to
tell, for the first time, the extraordinary story of the
Soros' survival. It is a story of bravery during one of
history's bleakest hours. More than that, it provides a
unique insight into the mysterious personality of George
Soros himself: a man who arrived penniless in Britain
and went on to break the Bank of England; a billionaire
two or three times over who is also one of the world's
greatest philanthropists. On March 19, 1944, when
the Nazis occupied Hungary, the Soroses were at their summer
home at Lupa Island, an hour north of Budapest. They
were too far away to hear German tanks clanking through
the capi- tal's empty streets, but word spread quickly.
For George, known to his family as Gyuri or Gyurka, and
his brother Paul (Pall), it was the first hint of menace
in their lives. The Soroses were a prosperous
middle-class family. In summer, Tivadar would take the
morning ferry frbm Lupa Island to his office in
Budapest, shaving as he went; in fine weather he might
even scull to work. He was a charismatic, free-thinking,
unconventional man, idolised by his younger
son. His courage was already prt of family folklore,
every detail greedily by the young Gyuri. A lieutenat
during the First World War, Tivald had been captured on
the Russian front and had escaped from Siberia by raft
When he returned to Hungary he was a changed man. He
married Elizabeth, a sensitive, emotional woman, and had
two sons, but his old ambition was lost. He became a
lawyer, but not one who worked more than was necessary?
Remember, as a little child, he would send me to his
main client to borrow some money and then we would go on
a skiing holiday,' George has recalled. 'When we
returned, he would be in a very bad mood for weeks while
he was trying to make some money to repay the debt.'
Unusually for a man in his profession, Tivadar lived on his
capital and for the moment. Crucially, when the
Nazis invaded and persecution of the Hungarian Jews
began, Tivadar was ready to act for himself. His book
describes how some Jews complied with the invitations'
even though they guessed the consequences; Tivadar felt no
such compunction. 'Morally and legally I felt entitled
not to obey unjustified, threatening state decrees,' he writes
in Maskerado. I wanted to take the fate of my family
into my own hands.' For the Soroses, there were no half
measures: to survive they had to 'disappear'.
It, his book, Tivadar describes how he hunted for
documents 4ike a maniac', trying to persuade Christian
acquaintances to sell their papers, or to obtain
forgeries. Word spread that he could help people
procure documents; inevitably, he took risks. One
day in the park, he started talking to a woman with two
children. She was about 40 and spoke German with a good
accent. She told him she had lived in Berlin and
had married a Hungarian, and was now a widow.
Often, they would chat. 'One time I must have
seemed depressed,' writes Tivadar. The woman
asked: "What's wrong" "Well, I've good reasons for
being down," I replied. "Between you and me, I am
Jewish, and that's a good reason in itself." He went on
to tell her about a young Jewish girl for whom he was
struggling to get Christian papers. The
woman seemed moved by his words. She said she also had a
confession to make. She too was Jewish, a refugee from
Germany. Next day they met again and he showed her some
forged registration forms he had just bought. 'Nicht
anruhren. [Don't touch these] she exclaimed. 'Very
crude forgery. The circle round the stamp is done with a
pair of compasses.' She held the small forms up to
the light and Tivadar could see for himself where the
point of the compasses had pierced the paper. He felt
humiliated, and furious with the man who had
endangered lives by supplying such makeshift
forgeries. Still, his gamble had paid off"I could
have put myself in great danger by revealing I was
Jewish to a stranger. But you have to take risks to get
results.' It was a lesson for life that the young George
was learning well. Tivadar was still working hard to obtain documents
for his wife and sons. A Budapest caretaker gave him a
set of papers which corresponded to his own family in age;
through his brother he obtained the complete papers of
an army man the same age as himself. 'Thus I
became Elek Szabo,' he writes, adding tongue in cheek:'
I decided to grow a moustache.' At Tivadar's
insistence, the family split up. Tivadar stayed in
Budapest, hidden in a small, windowless furniture store, on
the ground floor of an apartment block, sneaking out to
eat or swim. Pall became a Christian boy named Jozsef
Balazs while Elizabeth became Julia Besenyi, the
40-year-old daughter of a noble Hungarian family, who
had worked as a typist in Berlin, fallen ill and
returned to Hungary to convalesce. George's new
identity was the most daring. He was helped by his
barber, a Christian, who promised to find a guardian
amongst his clients. A fat, pinkish, puffy cheeked man
named Baufluss was asked to look after him. Baufluss was
a clerk in the Ministry of Agriculture, whose job was to
make an inventory of confiscated Jewish estates. George,
who was now known as 'Sander Kiss', became his godson
and, by a potent irony, accom- panied Baufluss as he
listed the assets of Jewish farms. Throughout Maskerado, one senses a man operating at
the peak of his powers. With unmistakable pride he
describes how, when he obtained documents for wealthy
acquaintances, he had no qualms about charging
exorbitantprices. He developed three prices
for documents: l. People who were dear to me or in
desperate circumstances got their papers free of charge;
2. People whom I didn't feel I could rightly make a
profit out of paid just my actual costs, regardless of
work or risk; and 3. My rich clients paid a high
price. I set no limits to the price for them or, as they
say, I had no ceiling.' It's not hard to imagine
how the young George would have absorbed an important
lesson: how to work outside the system and, when
necessary, to impose one's own laws. Like some Robin
Hood of the ghetto, Tivadar was needing the rich to help
the poor and, even as he took , great risks, he
explained to his sons how he justified his actions.' put
it like this,' he writes. 'We have to help, if the
outcome is greater than the money or effort we put in.
We should never begrudge a favour if the receiver gains
more than we lose.' At the same time, he showed
unshakeable self-belief. In his book (albeit written
some years after the war) Tivadar displays little sign
of depression or fear. Instead, he seems full of
mischief - and his children shared his innate
self-confidence. 'When a father you respect takes you
seriously, you have got to take yourself seriously,'
George Soros later remarked. Soros has even
described how, until he was 14, he thought he was 'some
kind of god or creator of everything, some sort of absolute
intellect'. The Holocaust may have changed all that, yet
his self-belief remained. As the months of German
occupation dragged on, the pressures on the family
intensified. In the country, Elizabeth was interrogated
by the police and, under great stress, successfully
convinced them she was 7ulia'. For a while George went
to live with her, before moving to a Catholic family
called the Haszkas. Despite the tension, he and his
father still spent a day scouring chemists' shops in
search of food for the Haszkas' baby. In October,
Hungary announced an armistice with the Russians, but
pro-Nazis formed a new government and Jews were harried
even more. Although the regime was unpopular, linking
Hungary's fate more closely to the Germans, few people
dared speak against it. In Budapest, the dangers
increased: there were Russian air raids, the electricity
supply failed and a bridge, mined by the Germans for
their retreat, blew up early, killing scores of people.
Tivadar decided it was time for Paul and George to live
with him, as his 'godsons'. So began a strange,
oddly intimate interlude in the boys' lives. They had
never been truly close, but now they were aung together.
To pass the time, they made up quizzes based on two
maps; one of Hungary, one of Europe. Most of the time,
Tivadar won. One morning, he writes, his elder son
spoke up. "I'm not just speaking for myself but also on
behalf of Gyuri. Godfather, your approach to this game
is not all it should be. Ever since we started playing,
you keep on winning. Now that's not so bad in itself,
but when you win the biscuits you eat them too." I was
taken aback. "As far as I know, there's no rule against
eating your prize, and you know I like sweet stuff."
'LThat's there's no rule against it, but it isn't fair,
because i reduces our chances of winning them back,"
said Pali Gyuri put his oar in too. "You realise, for
us, it's more an ethical question than a material one."
Faced with the united front, Tivadar agreed to play
chess instead. Another game was to bet when the
electricity would go off each day, but rarely could the
Soros sons outwit their father. George was learning the
art of gambling from a master. Such distractions were
needed, for by now the city was under siege. Russian
planes riddled streets with bullets; one passed the
house with a mighty' roar and, when the Soroses looked
out, two people lay dead on the pavement.
Machine guns were moving closer and panes of glass
began to shatter. One day, as George was at the window
making repairs, his father cried out in alarm. 'Gyuri,
get away from the window. George seemed not to hear.
eexi, why won't you let me finish' he asked.
I could have explained it very simply by saying
"Because I was afraid for you",' writes his father, with
rare poignancy. 'But some kind of reticence stopped me
saying that. Instead, I lust firmly said, "No
explanations, I'm just telling you to stop doing id" His
son, he records, discontentedly left the window, as if
to say: Even Dad and I don't understand each other now.'
There was little time for reflection, for around them the
situation was changing fast. The Germans were losing
ground and at last, on January 12 1945, the Russians
freed Hungary from the Nazis. It was the
moment they had longed for, but the Soroses felt little
more than simple relief. They had survived the terrors
of the Holocaust and could live as a family again; but
their old, tranquil existence did not return. The
Russian occupation brought new dangers. Fifty years of
Communist rule in Hungary was just beginning and, as
Tivadar notes, Life as regulated by the Russians and the
ideology of class warfare meant new masquerades and new
machinations.' In 1947, aged 17, George left
Hungary and travelled via Switzerland to London, where
he worked in kitchens and studied at the LSE. He got a
job at a merchant bank in London but soon moved to New
York, where his knowledge of Europian markets set him
apart. Soros the speculator was born. In the
same year, 1956 - the year of the popular uprising in Hungary
- his parents joined him in America, where they lived
for the rest of their lives. As George's career took
off, Paul also started a highly successful engineering
company. But for their parents, adapting to a new life
was harder. According to George's biographer Robert
Slater, author of Soros: The Life, Times and Trading
Secrets of the World's Greatest Investor, Tivadar opened
an espresso stand on Coney Island, but the business
failed and he retired. He developed cancer, and died at
the age of 75 in 1968. Afterwards, George spoke
movingly about his father's illness:' know from my
experience that when my father died, I denied it,' he
said.' refused to face the fact that he was dying. I
think it was a tragic mistake on my part.' For all their
mutual respect, father his son; had never been able to
talk about their emotions. Just as, years before,
Tivadar could not tell his son to draw back from the
gunfire because he loved him, so he and George could not
acknowledge that he was dying. When his mother
died, some 23 years later in 1989, George made sure the
circumstances were very different. He was with her,
holding her hand, as she described see- ing the gates of
Heaven and slowly lost consciousness. After her
death he started the 'Project on Death' in America, to
help families cope with bereavement. It is one of many
philanthropic activities with which Soros has become
associated. Most famously, he has spent hundreds of
millions of dollars to support democracy in Eastern
Europe; in the waning years of the Cold War he even
bought photocopiers for his native Hungary so the
Communists could not monopolise information. More
recently, he has spent $50 million trying to save
Sarajevo from the Serbs, as well as millions funding
Open Society foundations - which promote education,
freedom of speech and human rights - around the world.
In the US, he has sought to open the debate on drugs
policy. In recent months the Soros legend has been
tarnished just a little. Earlier this year, his funds
failed to predict the fall in technology stocks and
their value fell by a third - some $5 billion. Soros
announced his firm would pursue a less risky investment
strategy: the days of the 'macro bet' were over. Even
the Man Who Broke the Bank of England can, it seems,
make mistakes. Yet, in his 71st year, George Soros
has good reason to feel content. He is happily married
to his wife Susan, 25 years his junior, with whom he has
two sons, aged 12 and 14. He also has three grown-up
children - Robert, Andrea and John - from his first
marriage. As his biographer Robert Slater points
out, his whole career can be traced back to the events
of 1944 and 1945. The Second World War taught George
that there were really no boundaries to what he could
do,' he says.'He had gone through hell and it taught him
to be a risk taker, to try almost anything. He also
reacted very negatively to oppression. Once he got away from
authoritarlan governments, he thrived-in a free environment.'
In supporting publication of his father's book -
bo he and Paul have contributed forewords - George Soros
is showing a new and very public pride in his past.
Perhaps he too believes the lessons he learnt then have
made him the man he is today. As he himself has said:
I learnt the art of survival from a grand
master.'
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