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You Can't Become Rich In Your Pocket Until You Become Rich In Your Mind | ||||
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George Soros found himself with too little money and companionship to enjoy what the city had to offerThe Cellars of Budapest Life for the residents of Budapest in 1943 had an eerie calm. By this time, Allied forces had gained a foothold in southern Italy, and their fighter planes were within reach of Budapest. While the city seemed free from the threat of attack, bitter fighting raged else where in Europe, and the danger loomed that it would spread to Hungary. Coal was in short supply, and schools closed because air raids were feared. By the spring of 1944, Jewish communities throughout Europe had been largely wiped out by the Nazis. Fears grew that Hungarys one million Jews, the largest Jewish population in Eastern Europe, would be next. Word was spreading of mass exterminations at Auschwitz. The Russians were moving westward. But would they break the Nazi stronghold over Europe in time to save Hungarys Jews? For the Jewish population of Budapest, the nightmare seemed imminent. March 19, 1944, was a Sunday, and so the Soroses were at Lupa Island. They were too far away to hear or see the frightening events unfolding near Budapest to the south: German tanks were moving along both the Buda and Pest shores of the Danube. The Nazi invasion was on. It was a peaceful invasion: No shots were fired, and the only sounds were of the tanks clanking chains and whining motors. The streets were quickly deserted, as everyone sought the shelter of home until assured that it was safe. The main preoccupation was to grab for a phone. Along with many others in Budapest, George believed that the Nazi invasion of his country would be short-lived, most likely no more than six weeks. It seemed to make sense. The Nazis were in retreat elsewhere. The war seemed to be winding down. Six weeks. Not a long time. But no one really knew. All that one could do was hope for the best and hide. To be on the streets could prove a death sentence. The Jewish community of Budapest was divided into the dreamers and the realists. The dreamers clung to their illusions. They had believed up to the last moments before March 19 that Hitlers forces would never come. Even as Nazi tanks were rolling down the streets, the dreamers insisted that it would not be so bad for the Jews, that all those reports of Jewish persecution elsewhere in Europe could not possibly be true, that the war, at any rate, would soon end. The realists also believed that the war would be over soon, but they believed the reports of mass exterminations at Auschwitz and elsewhere, and they wondered whether the fighting would end in time to save them from similar persecution. The dismaying reports rang true to Tivadar Soros. He had been concerned about the Nazis since their rise to power a decade earlier. Having watched their rampant, senseless violence explode into world war, he worried that the violence would eventually reach Hungary, Budapest, and his family. Having survived one form of tyranny during World War 1, Tivadar vowed that he would help his family make it through another. He had few financial worries because he sold off some real estate early in the war. He radiated supreme self-confidence; his calming presence comforted George, Paul, and Elizabeth. Ferenc Nagel, then a boy of 13, recalled the maudlin guessing game his own father played that spring, trying to predict how many of his family and friends would be wiped out. Half of them at least, was the fathers gruesome prediction; then in the next breath, he said knowingly, Not the Soroses. Not the Soroses. Tivadar was a survivor. He would look after his family. Over the next 12 months, 400,000 Jews from Budapest were killed, sad testimony to the prescience of Ferenc Nagels father. The survivors, including George Soros and his family, endured terrifying days and nights. When the Nazi authorities gave the Jewish Council of Budapest the task of distributing deportation notices to Jews, the council turned that gruesome task over to small children. George was one of those children. At the councils offices he was given small pieces of paper on which peoples names were written. Each paper contained orders for a person to report to the rabbinical seminary at nine the next morning and to bring a blanket and food for twenty-four hours. George sought his fathers advice. Showing him the list, he watched his father grimace in pain as he realized that the Nazis were rounding up Hungarys Jewish attorneys! Deliver the notices, he instructed his son, but make sure you tell each person that these are deportation notices. George obeyed, but he discovered that some of those he told were not about to hide from the Nazis, even if it meant being deported. If the Nazis had decreed that Jewish attorneys were to be deported, that was the law, and the law must be obeyed. Tell your father, said one, that I am a law-abiding citizen, that I have always been a law-abiding citizen and I am not going to start breaking the law now. Tivadar Soros was a handy father for these horrific times. An automatic death sentence hung over Budapests Jews-a death sentence that would include young George if the Nazis discovered that he was Jewish. The nightmare of a journey to a concentration camp suddenly took on a gruesome reality. This is a lawless occupation, Tivadar told his son. The normal rules dont apply. You have to forget how you behave in a normal society. This is an abnormal situation. An abnormal situation meant that it was all right for George to behave in a way that might otherwise seem dishonest or criminal, his father explained. The presence of the Nazi authorities in Budapest justified such behavior. Tivadar arranged for George to function in this abnormal situation. To assure that his son was not taken by the Nazi authorities, Tivadar bribed a Hungarian government official to permit his son to pose as the godson of a non-Jewish official in the Hungarian Agriculture Ministry. Tivadar purchased false identity papers for the boy, papers that were the key to his survival. For the duration of the war, George Soros became Janos Kis. Tivadar also offered financial support to the officials Jewish wife to enable her to hide from the Nazis. In later years, George Soros described his fathers actions euphemistically as a mere commercial transaction. The Hungarian bureaucrat whom Tivadar bribed was responsible for confiscating the belongings of Jewish property owners who had already been taken to Auschwitz. George accompanied him on his journeys around the country. For the teenager the risks were enormous. Had I been caught, I would have been killed, George Soros remarked with a lack of emotion that belied how dangerous his situation really was. Hiding was essential. One refuge was a cellar, encased in solid stone walls. Its entry was down a set of winding, narrow stone steps. Within the cellar another hiding place, offering even greater concealment, lay beyond a locked door. The family used the second, inner hiding place when someone came to search the house. In all, George and his family had access to 11 hiding places. Often they spent weeks in the attics or basements of friends, never knowing whether they would suddenly have to vacate the spot. If the 14-yearold George experienced fear at these times, he never admitted it later. Indeed, for him, the year seemed one big adventure. On one occasion, both Tivadar and George were hiding in the same place, both with false non-Jewish identities. They spoke to one another, but not as father and son, in order not to betray their true identities. On another occasion, while the Soroses were holed up in a cellar, George, Paul, and Tivadar passed the time by playing games. The stakes were a small amount of candy. When George or Paul won a game, he ate his winnings. Tivadar, perhaps recalling an old survival trick from World War I, refused to eat his. George found the whole experience of the war during 1944 thrilling, and he described it later as the happiest year of his life. He felt like the film hero Indiana Jones, oblivious to danger, immune to the fears others felt. Having Tivadar around made a big difference: George was terribly proud of his father and, encouraged by Tivadars self-confidence, thought him a genuine hero. For all of his apparent faults, Tivadar taught George valuable lessons about the art of survival. One: It is all right to take risks. Having risked his life daily during the latter part of World War II, Tivadar came to believe that most other risks were worth taking. Two: When taking risks, dont bet the ranch. Never risk everything. That would be foolish, impractical, and unnecessary. Hiding from the Nazis, however, George Soros had no choice but to risk everything. When he accepted those false identity papers, he knew that exposure meant death. Later, in his business career, he would not have to make life-or-death choices. He could take risks without having to worry that failure could cost him everything. He could even enjoy risk taking. As long as he left himself room to recover. Im very concerned with the need to survive, he told a television interviewer at the height of his success in 1992, and not to take risks that could actually destroy me. The war taught George one other lesson. We all have preconceived notions, and these perceptions dont necessarily correspond with the way the world actually functions. The lesson George learned was that a gap exists between perception and reality. It was that gap that he would eventually explore as he weaved his theories about human knowledge and, later, about the financial markets. In the fall of 1945, George Soros was back in school. With the war over, Jews and non Jews were no longer separated into two classes. George was 15 years old and like the other students who lived through the Nazi trauma, mature beyond his years. That trauma was still evident in many of the students. Pal Tetenyi recalled that the discipline in the class was terrible. Many of us had small guns which we took to class. It was a good thing to have a gun. It showed we were mature. But it was childish. The residents of Lupa, including George and his family, visited the island in the spring of 1945, the first time since the end of war. They exchanged wartime stories, recounted how they had managed to survive, and talked of plans for the near future, plans that were linked inextricably with what they thought might happen to postwar Hungary. Each of them wrestled with one agonizing question: Should one leave the country? Having survived the Nazis, the Hungarians did not want to trade one menacing existence for another. If the new government was likely to be Nazi-like in its treatment of the citizenry, it seemed better to leave, and the sooner the better. Yet, whether the new government would be benign or hostile was not clear. More to the point, no one could say with certainty how large a role the Soviets would play in Hungarys government. Some of the Soros familys friends were hopeful, eager to believe that all would be well, that the Soviets would prove far more benevolent than the Nazis. Others were suspicious and cynical. They were ready to pack their bags and leave while they could, while it was still possible to obtain a passport. Among the latter group was George Soros. He felt it was time to leave Hungary and head for the West. He left on his own in the fall of 1947 at the age of 17. Eager to finish his engineering studies, his brother Paul remained in Hungary another year. Georges first stop was Bern, Switzerland, but soon he moved on to London, a place that sounded attractive to the teenager. Thanks to his father, George had enough money for the journey. But once there, he would be largely left to his own resources. His only money had come from an aunt who had already reestablished herself in Florida. Although England was supposed to provide George Soros with a happier life, he found himself with too little money and companionship to enjoy what the city had to offer. This was one of the most difficult episodes of his life. He was lonely and virtually broke. Still, he tried to find some light in the darkness. Sitting in a London coffeehouse, he thought to himself half-humorously: Here I am. I have reached bottom. Isnt that a wonderful feeling? Theres only one way to go. It was, of course, not a wonderful feeling to have reached bottom, and all that the 18-year-old could do was go from odd job to odd job, hoping that his luck would eventually turn. He took work as a waiter at a restaurant called Quaglinos in Londons Mayfair section, a place where aristocrats and film stars dined and danced the night away. Sometimes, when his cash flow was nearly zero, George sustained himself by eating leftover profiteroles. Years later, he remembered envying a cat because it was eating sardines while he was not. Part-time job followed part-time job. In the summer of 1948, he did farm work as part of the Lend a Hand on the Land program. The man who would in the early 1990s come to epitomize high finance organized a strike so that the farm workers could be paid piecework rather than a day rate. Because of Soross efforts, he and the other employees earned more. In Suffolk, he harvested apples. He also worked as a house painter, and later boasted to friends that he was not a bad painter at all. The odd jobs, poverty, and loneliness proved no fun at all, and in the ensuing years, George could not rid himself of those hellish images. I carried certain fears with me out of this that were - not so good. Fears of reaching - of hitting the bottom again. Having hit it once, I didnt want to hit it again. |
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