TOM LANTOS LEFT BEHIND HUMAN RIGHTS LEGACY
By Ron Kampeas
Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle
fullStory=true&articleID=1600
Feb 11 2008
USA
WASHINGTON — The flags dipped at half-staff over the Capitol, the
warm remembrances flooding email inboxes; the solemn tone in the
"Have you heard?" phone calls.
U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., earned all these tributes after
he died Monday of cancer of the esophagus — and something more:
The mourning not just of a man, but of the unique voice of the only
Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress.
"We lose a voice for human rights, which was in his case unique,"
Elie Wiesel, the novelist whose own writings have become icons of
Holocaust remembrance, told JTA. "He spoke always against oppression,
against persecution, against racism."
Lantos died at the Naval Medical Center in suburban Bethesda, Md.,
surrounded by his wife, Annette, two daughters and many of his 18
grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Funeral arrangements have
yet to be announced.
"Having lived through the worst evil known to mankind, Tom Lantos
translated the experience into a lifetime commitment to the fight
against anti-Semitism, Holocaust education, and a commitment to the
state of Israel," Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the speaker of the
House of Representatives, said in a statement.
President Bush said: "As the only Holocaust survivor to serve in
Congress, Tom was a living reminder that we must never turn a blind
eye to the suffering of the innocent at the hands of evil men."
Sallai Meridor, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, said Israel "lost
one of our greatest friends."
The remembrances of Lantos, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, were a kaleidoscope of the human rights causes he championed
since his election to the House in 1980.
Wiesel remembered Lantos’ contributions to the building of the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, which Wiesel helped found.
"From the very beginning in Washington, he was with us involved in
every step leading to the building of the museum, developing it into
a source for archives, learning and teaching," he said.
Mark Levin, the executive director of NCSJ: Advocates on behalf of
Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eurasia, focused on
Lantos’ role in the 1980s in pressing the Soviet Union to release
its Jews. Lantos made several trips to Russia to meet with refuseniks
and championed them in Congress.
"He was forthright, compassionate and deeply committed to the cause
of freeing Jews from the former Soviet Union," Levin told JTA.
In 2003, he would found the House’s Human Rights Caucus.
Other encomiums came from The American Jewish World Service, which has
led the Jewish community in pressing for an end to the genocide in
Sudan; the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which praised
his steadfast support for Israel and his tough stance on Iran;
and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which commemorated his
contributions to social welfare at home.
"He has been a valiant voice demanding more action against the Darfur
genocide and at the same time a valiant leader in the fight to stop
the scourge of HIV/AIDS from devastating the developing world," AJWS
President Ruth Messinger told JTA from Uganda, where she was touring
AIDS relief projects.
Lantos "blazed a trail in the United States Congress fighting for
education, health care, human rights, and Israel," said JCPA, the
public-policy umbrella body for several influential national Jewish
organizations, the synagogue movements and more than 100 local Jewish
communities.
Also chiming in were United Jewish Communities, B’nai B’rith
International, the Anti-Defamtion League .the World Jewish Congress,
the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center, Hadassah and Americans
for Peace Now.
The Democratic National Committee remembered Lantos as the servant
of his Silicon Valley district. "In serving his constituents and his
country, Tom never forgot the Democratic Party’s ideals of freedom,
fairness, and opportunity for all," the chairman of the DNC, Howard
Dean, said in a statement.
Lantos was not afraid to take on his allies. On the foreign affairs
committee, he blasted Silicon Valley giants like Google and Yahoo for
colluding with China’s government in censorship. He authored tough
Iran sanctions legislation but broke with pro-Israel orthodoxy by
offering to meet with the Islamic Republic’s leaders. Pro-Israel
groups also opposed a non-binding resolution that recognized the
Ottoman era massacres of Armenians as a genocide, worried that
it would cause a rift between Israel and Turkey — Lantos pushed
it through the committee, unwilling to countenance what he saw as
genocide revisionism.
His appeal crossed political aisles: Both the National Jewish
Democratic Council and the Republican Jewish Coalition issued
statements mourning his passing. Top Republicans on his committee
also chimed in: "An unfailingly gracious and courageous man, Tom was
recognized by friends and colleagues alike as a leader who left an
enviable legacy of service to his country," said U.S. Rep. Ileana
Ros Lehtinen, R-Fla., the committee’s ranking member.
The campaigns of the two Democrats left in the presidential field,
U.S. Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.,
also released statements mourning his passing.
Lantos was 16 in 1944 when the Nazis invaded his native Hungary. His
Web site tells of his fighting in the anti-Nazi underground and arrived
in the United States in 1947 to study. He was a noted economist and
consultant prior to his election in 1980.
Expressions of his love for his adopted country were as constant as
his defenses of human rights.
"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,"
he said in his statement announcing his retirement last month. "I
will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to
this great country."
Lantos, said Wiesel, died too young — even at 80, even after serving
nearly three decades in public office. He noted that Lantos only
ascended to the committee chairmanship in 2006, after Democrats
regained Congress.
"He had influence," Wiesel said. "He would have had more had he lived."
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