Posted February 11 2008 by David Tayne
Rep Tom Lantos Dies at age 80
Congressman Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to be elected to Congress, died today at the age of 80. Lantos had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer but chose to finish the remainder of his 14th term rather than step down from office. Lantos, a Democrat who served a northern California district, had recently assumed the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Lantos was first elected to the House in 1980. Only three years after his initial election, Lantos founded the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. In 2006 Lantos was one of the 5 congressmen to be arrested outside a Sudanese embassy at a protest against the genocide in Darfur.
Born in Hungary, Lantos was only 16 when Hitler’s armies invaded. He escaped twice from forced labor camps and eventually was rescued by Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat. Though Lantos was able to escape the Holocaust, he lost his mother and a majority of his family. Never forgetting the horrors he escaped, Tom Lantos made sure to be an advocate of human rights and moral authority.
Lantos is quoted as saying, “It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a member of Congress,” upon announcing his retirement last month. “I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country.”
To read more on Jewneric about Tom Lantos click here
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2 Comments currently posted. 
Benji Rosenzweig says:
Jewneric » Leader of Entebbe Airport Rescue Dead at 70 says:
[...] and of course, on the political scene, US Representative, Israel advocate and Holocaust survivor, Tom Lantos, passed away at the age of [...]
I didn’t know that he existed, I feel bad about this. As the grandson of a couple of Holocaust survivors who built up from nothing to raise a large, and flourishing family. I feel like I should have known about him. There are few survivors left, and unfortunately they are not going to be here forever. A piece of history has died. Every time a survivor passes we get one step further away from knowledge and experience in a belief in G-d that I think no one in our generation knows. I remember my grandfather telling me what belief in G-d means. I don’t have an ounce of what they had. Tom Lantos will be sorely missed.