This all comes from Snopes:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/george-soros-ss-nazi-germany/
Soros: “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, in a funny way, it’s just like in the markets — that if I weren’t there — of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would — would — would be taking it away anyhow. And it was the — whether I was there or not, I was only a spectator, the property was being taken away. So the — I had no role in taking away that property. So I had no sense of guilt.“
Soros’s biographer, Michael T. Kaufman, described Soros as “visibly dumbfounded” by Kroft’s “prosecutorial” line of questioning during the interview. Kaufman addressed the claim that Soros was involved in confiscating Jewish property in his book, Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire (Knopf, 2002).
While it’s true, Kaufman wrote, that one of the jobs delegated to young George’s temporary protector (a Hungarian bureaucrat named Baumbach) was taking inventory of Jewish properties already confiscated by the Nazis, the extent of Soros’s participation was accompanying Baumbach on one of those assignments:
Shortly after George went to live with Baumbach, the man was assigned to take inventory on the vast estate of Mor Kornfeld, an extremely wealthy aristocrat of Jewish origin. The Kornfeld family had the wealth, wisdom, and connections to be able to leave some of its belongings behind in exchange for permission to make their way to Lisbon. Baumbach was ordered to go to the Kornfeld estate and inventory the artworks, furnishings, and other property. Rather than leave his “godson” behind in Budapest for three days, he took the boy with him. As Baumbach itemized the material, George walked around the grounds and spent time with Kornfeld’s staff. It was his first visit to such a mansion, and the first time he rode a horse. He collaborated with no one and he paid attention to what he understood to be his primary responsibility: making sure that no one doubted that he was Sandor Kiss [Soros’s assumed identity]. Among his practical concerns was to make sure that no one saw him pee.
George’s father, Tivadar Soros, provided a similar account of the incident in his 1965 autobiography, Masquerade: Dancing Around Death in Nazi Occupied Hungary (note: Tivadar Soros gave the name of the ministry official as “Baufluss,” but Soros confirmed to us that the correct name is Baumbach):
Baufluss was charged by the ministry with inventorying confiscated Jewish estates. He was home only at weekends; the rest of his time he spent taking inventory in the provinces. During the week George passed his time alone in Baufluss’ s apartment. Lacking anything else to do, he caught the attention of some of his schoolmates, who lived in the building across the way. Communicating by hand signals, they seemed surprised to see him holed up in somebody else’s house. The following week the kind-hearted Baufluss, in an effort to cheer the unhappy lad up, took him off with him to the provinces. At the time he was working in Transdanubia, west of Budapest, on the model estate of a Jewish aristocrat, Baron Moric Kornfeld. There they were wined and dined by what was left of the staff. George also met several other ministry officials, who immediately took a liking to the young man, the alleged godson of Mr Baufluss. He even helped with the inventory. Surrounded by good company, he quickly regained his spirits. On Saturday he returned to Budapest.
“He even helped with the inventory,” Tivadar Soros wrote. It’s a detail one doesn’t find in Kaufman’s book. Some may rush to cite this as proof that Soros was indeed a “collaborator,” but given that it occurred on only one occasion, and that Soros was under an imperative to play the part of Baumbach’s godson while in the company of actual Nazi collaborators, it demands stretching the meaning of “collaborator” beyond all reasonable limits.
Moreover, these biographical passages demonstrate that Steve Kroft’s claim on 60 Minutes that Soros “accompanied his phony godfather on his appointed rounds, confiscating property from the Jews” is flat-out false. Tivadar Soros wrote that most of young George’s time under Baumbach’s care was spent alone in the latter’s apartment. Both Tivadar and Kaufman report that George only resided with Baumbach for a short time — a matter of weeks — before Tivadar, concerned that his son’s real identity was in danger of exposure, shipped him off to spend the summer of 1944 with his mother (who herself was living under an assumed name at a lakeside resort some distance from Budapest). George Soros spent no further time with Baumbach.
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