Tom Lantos, Congressman who Survived Holocaust, Dies from Cancer

Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, has died. Lantos passed away at the age of 80 early Monday at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in suburban Maryland, about a month after revealing he had cancer of the esophagus.

Lantos had served in Congress as a Democratic Rep. from California since 1981 but had announced in January that he would not seek re-election in 2008 citing his illness as a main reason.

Respected as a moral authority in Congress, Lantos had recently assumed a position as committee chair for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Lantos, born in Hungary was 16-year-old when Hitler’s Germany invaded and occupied the country in 1944.

Twice Lantos escaped camps before finding protection under Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who used his power to save thousands of Hungarian Jews.

When he announced his retirement from Congress last month Lantos noted “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.’

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