Tom Lantos, Democratic Congressman from California, died Monday of complications from esophageal cancer at the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in suburban Maryland. He is 85. Tom Lantos is the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress and was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus last month.
Lantos, who referred to himself as "an American by choice," was born to Jewish parents in Budapest, Hungary, and was 16 when Adolf Hitler occupied Hungary in 1944. He survived by escaping twice from a forced labor camp and coming under the protection of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who used his official status and visa-issuing powers to save thousands of Hungarian Jews. Source: AP
World Jewish Congress Mourns Loss of Rep. Tom Lantos