Crusoes in Siberia. The Fairest Judgment

By Tivadar Soros

If you want to know where the brothers Paul and George Soros got their business skills, look no further than this little adventure story told by their father.

In simple, understated style, Tivadar Soros tells how he and his companions broke out of their Siberian prisoner-of-war camp at the time of the Russian Revolution and traveled on foot through inhospitable mountains to freedom. And this was just preparation for the equally horrendous conditions that Tivadar and his family endured in World War II. --

"Unfortunately, out there in the forest, I had
no companion like Crusoe’s Friday. My main
helpers were an unquenchable desire to return
home, and the easy equanimity that comes to a
healthy person leading a wandering life." (Tivadar Soros) --

"Tivadar Soros’s memoir of Siberia ... is essentially an adventure story – a story of a young man’s ingenuity and endurance. (Humphrey Tonkin) --

"As a schoolboy, I used to join my father in the
swimming pool after school, and after swimming
he would regale me with an installment of his adventures. In this way they became an important part of my childhood. (George Soros) --

"I and my brother consider it to be our good fortune to grow up observing how our father lived and dealt with the problems of the world. (Paul Soros)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mondial
• Release date: Apr 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781595692054

Tivadar Soros

Tivadar Soros (1894–1968) was a Hungarian Jewish doctor, lawyer, author and editor. He was the father of Paul and George Soros. He fought in World War I and spent years in a prison camp in Siberia before escaping. He founded the Esperanto literary magazine Literatura Mondo (Literary World) in 1922 and edited it until 1924. He wrote the novels Modernaj Robinzonoj (Crusoes in Siberia) and Maskerado ĉirkaŭ la morto (Masquerade (dance) around death), an autobiographical novel about his experience during the Nazi occupation of Budapest, Hungary. Maskerado has been translated into English, Russian, German, Turkish, and Hungarian, Modernaj Robinzonoj into English and Italian (Source: en.wikipedia.org)

Book preview

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Crusoes in Siberia

by

Tivadar Soros

(Dr. Teodoro Schwartz)

Prefaces by Paul Soros and George Soros,

Introduction by Humphrey Tonkin

and

The Fairest Judgment

A Tale by Tivadar Soros

(Teo Melas)

Translated from Esperanto and Edited

by Humphrey Tonkin

Published by Mondial at Smashwords.

Copyright

Tivadar Soros (Teodoro Ŝvarc, Teodoro Schwartz, Teo Melas):

Crusoes in Siberia

and

The Fairest Judgment

Translated from Esperanto and edited by Humphrey Tonkin

Original titles in Esperanto:

Modernaj Robinzonoj: En la siberia praarbaro 

(Literatura Mondo, 1923/1924)

La plej justa juĝo (Literatura Mondo, 1/1 [October 1922]: 5-6)

Copyright © 2011 Paul Soros, George Soros, and Mondial, New York.

Translation, Translator’s Introduction, Notes

© 1998, 2010 Humphrey Tonkin.

Illustrations and maps: Literatura Mondo, Archives of the editor, Literary Digest, Mondial, Yale University Library;

Map 1 is published by permission of Winfried Dallmann of the

Norwegian Polar Institute.

ISBN (this electronic edition): 9781595692054

ISBN (soft cover edition): 9781595692184

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, photographic including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher, the translator, or the estate of the author.

2011, Mondial, New York

www.mondialbooks.com

Contents

Preface by George Soros

Preface by Paul Soros

Translator’s Introduction (Humphrey Tonkin)

Notes on the Translation

Illustrations

Crusoes in Siberia

Introduction

I Captivity

In which our kind reader is informed of the pleasures of prisoners of war,

of the humane conduct of warring parties and of something that allows

the continuation of this story.

II Escape

In which the reader discovers that it is not enough simply to decide to escape.

III Consultation

In this chapter the reader learns that it is no simple matter to travel

through virgin forest.

IV Choice

Wherein are described a few of the characters with whom we will live,

or, in some cases, die.

V First Obstacles

In this chapter the author shows how continued progress,

like most things in life, takes longer than expected.

VI The Crossing

Here the reader will learn about efforts so great

that they might move mountains.

VII Pursuit

This chapter shows that being the object of hostile pursuit

sometimes has its agreeable side.

VIII Among the Orochen

The reader learns that there are savages not only in Europe

but also in Eastern Siberia.

IX A Visit to an Orochen Village

The reader with no interest in Orochen villages need not read this chapter,

in which the author describes certain characteristics of the nomadic life.

X In the Forest

If the reader is interested, he can read in this chapter about

the so-called virgin forest.

XI On the Vitim

So far, our adventurous way has taken us by land, but now we continue

by river. After many difficulties we finally reach our Eldorado.

Appendix 1: Who are the Orochen?

Appendix 2: Maps

Notes

The Fairest Judgment

Preface by George Soros

This book is my father’s account of his adventures in the First World War when he led a breakout from a prisoner of war camp in Siberia. It is a companion piece to Masquerade, my father’s account of his family’s adventures during the German occupation of Hungary in the Second World War. These two episodes in my father’s life are closely connected. His adventures in the First World War prepared him for what was to come in the Second. He learned that there are extraordinary times when the normal rules don’t apply and one must be prepared to break the rules in order to survive. Clinging to property or insisting on comfortable living conditions can have fatal consequences. When he joined the army as a volunteer, he was an ambitious young man, but after his experiences in the Russian Revolution he gave up his ambitions. He was more concerned with living his life the right way than amassing material wealth. Money was only a means to an end, not an end in itself. He saw the limitations of bourgeois values and developed his own value system.

He passed on his values to my brother and me and those values have guided me ever since. This may sound strange coming from a man who has amassed an immense fortune but the fact is that I have never been interested in money for its own sake; otherwise I could never have given away so much of it. As a schoolboy, I used to join my father in the swimming pool after school and after swimming he would regale me with an installment of his adventures. In this way they became an important part of my childhood. They helped to prepare me for my own adventures in the Second World War. The German occupation of Hungary became the formative experience of my life and it turned out to have a very positive influence on my outlook on life. It taught me how to handle risk. My father was well prepared. He immediately recognized that this was one of those extraordinary occasions which require extraordinary measures. He arranged for false identities for his family and he also helped many other people. The story is accurately recounted by my father in Masquerade.

Here I want to mention only one episode in my life which was directly affected by my father’s experiences during the Russian Revolution. I am referring to when I established a foundation in what was then the Soviet Union. During the early days of Glasnost when Gorbachev called Sakharov in Gorky and asked him to resume his patriotic activities in Moscow I immediately realized that something had changed in the Soviet regime. If it had been business as usual, Sakharov might have been allowed to emigrate, but not to return to Moscow. This prompted me to go to Moscow as soon as I could and try to replicate what I had done in my native Hungary by setting up a foundation with local participation. I was guided by my father’s experiences in the Russian Revolution. He had told me that in revolutionary times the impossible becomes possible. He who sits down first at a desk abandoned by the director of an institution can take over his role. Other foundations sought legal authorization and it took them several years to obtain it because authorities were not functioning properly. We started operating without permission and we stole a march on the others. For a couple of years we were the only game in town. I felt at home in Russia. After all, we were old acquaintances. I had lived through the Russian Revolution through my father.

The story my father tells in this book represents only a fraction of his experiences during the Russian Revolution. It was published in the first volume of Literatura Mondo, the principal Esperanto literary magazine of the day, which he founded and owned. I believe that he intended to publish additional articles just as he told his story to me in the swimming pool in installments, but he did not follow through.

The only other article of his in Literatura Mondo is a story about a beautiful girl in an Indian village. I don’t know whether my father invented the story or not, but it is characteristic enough of his sense of humor that we have included it in the book as an appendix.

Preface by Paul Soros

I was around eleven years old when I heard from my father the story described in this book. There are a couple of stories that he told me relating to the same period. One had to do with how he received the Austro-Hungarian equivalent of the Iron Cross, the name I no longer recall. He was a lieutenant and was told to send a sentry about 50 feet ahead of the ditch they were dug in to observe the status of the Russian ditch opposite. He asked for a volunteer. One of the soldiers volunteered, crawled out around 30 feet when he was shot. He asked for another volunteer to bring him back. Silence. He heard himself say what’s the matter guys, do you expect me to go to get him? Silence. He realized it was a stupid thing to make a threat that he did not mean and put himself in an impossible situation but he couldn’t undo it and had no choice but to crawl out himself. Luckily, he was not shot.

The other anecdote had to do with his arrival in a prisioner-of-war camp in Siberia in 1915. There were barrels of caviar. Everybody gorged themselves on caviar – breakfast, lunch and dinner. After three weeks nobody wanted to look at caviar much less eat it.

At the prisoner-of-war camp he was elected trustee representing the officers. Word came around that when control of a neighboring war prisoner camp switched from the Whites to the Reds, the officers’ trustees were shot. This prompted him to organize the episode described in this book.

Eventually he managed to reach Moscow. He and his friend went to the local tribunal looking for work. His friend went in first to see the chief judge of the tribunal and addressed the chief judge as tovarish