Rest in Peace: Tom Lantos (1928-2008) (Holocaust Survivor, Congressman)

Congressman Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo, San Francisco), 80, passed away this morning due to complications from cancer. Elected to office in 1980, Lantos was Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and one of the country’s leading champions of human rights. His commitment to this issue was forged when, as a young man, he lost nearly his entire family in the Holocaust.

After being diagnosed with esophageal cancer in late December, Lantos announced that he would not seek reelection. He said at the time, “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. I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country.”

Lantos was in his 14th term in Congress. In 2007, his Democratic colleagues elected him chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was also a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Lantos sought to be a voice for human rights and civil liberties.  He was the founding co-chairman of the 24-year-old Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which Annette directed as a volunteer since its inception. He also founded the Congressional Friends of Animals Caucus.

Born as Lantos Tamás Péter to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, Lantos was part of a resistance movement against the Nazis during the German occupation of Hungary. He sought refuge in a safe house established by Raoul Wallenberg; in 1981 Lantos sponsored a bill making Wallenberg an Honorary Citizen of the United States.

Lantos moved to the United States in 1947. Lantos was the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in Congress.

Upon immigrating to the United States, Lantos attended the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley, receiving his Ph.D in 1953.

KJ