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Holocaust survivor U.S. Rep. Lantos to retire

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  • Holocaust survivor U.S. Rep. Lantos to retire

    Holocaust survivor U.S. Rep. Lantos to retire

    02 Jan 2008 19:28:54 GMT
    Source: Reuters


    By Richard Cowan

    WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Rep. Tom Lantos, who chairs the U.S.
    House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and is the only
    Holocaust survivor elected to the Congress, on Wednesday said he has
    been diagnosed with cancer and will not seek re-election in November.

    The 79-year-old California Democrat, who was born in Hungary and twice
    escaped Nazi labor camps, said he will serve the remainder of his 14th
    term, which ends in January 2009.

    In announcing he has been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus and
    would end his House career at the end of his term, Lantos reflected on
    his life.

    "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
    said.

    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."

    (Editing by Vicki Allen)
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