U.S. Rep. Lantos, only Holocaust survivor in Congress, to retire

Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress, announced on Wednesday that he will not seek re-election this year because he has cancer of the esophagus.

Lantos, 79, a California Democrat and chairman of the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee, is known for his dedication to human rights issues. He is serving his 14th term, after joining the House of Representatives in 1981.

"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," Lantos, who was born in Budapest, Hungary, said in a statement. "I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country."

According to his statement, routine medical tests revealed the cancer. It did not provide additional details.

In 1944, as a teenager, he was sent to a labor camp but eventually escaped. Three years later, he came to the United States on an academic scholarship.

Shortly after Lantos came to Congress in 1981, he pushed for legislation granting honorary U.S. citizenship to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. That came nearly four decades after Wallenberg protected Lantos and other occupants of an apartment building from Nazi arrest.

Throughout his congressional career, Lantos was an outspoken critic of international human rights abuses.

Lantos helped win passage in 2002 of a congressional resolution authorizing the U.S. attack on Iraq that unfolded the following year. More recently, Lantos has been critical of the "U.S. involvement in the civil war in Iraq."

When Democrats gained majority control of the House a year ago, Lantos used his new position as chairman of the foreign affairs panel to conduct oversight of the Iraq war, including a high-profile hearing last September on progress from the U.S. troop increase.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Californian, called Lantos "one of America's leading experts on foreign affairs and most effective advocates for human rights both at home and abroad." She added, "As the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, he has used his position to fight for those whose voices have been silenced by hatred and oppression."

He is married to Annette, his childhood sweetheart. The couple has two daughters, 17 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

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