SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER STATEMENT ON THE PASSING OF CONGRESSMAN TOM LANTOS
The Simon Wiesenthal Center mourns the passing of Congressman Tom Lantos.
“Tom Lantos never forgot who he was — a 16 year old Hungarian Jew caught up in the terror of the Nazi Holocaust. He was put into a forced labor camp and escaped. While millions were murdered, he was fortunate enough to have survived in a safe house established by Raoul Wallenberg, and save tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. Those events would define his life," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
“When he was elected to the United States Congress in 1981, he was determined to speak for those who had no voice. Throughout his distinguished tenure in Congress, he spoke for the victims of genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur and was an outspoken defender of the State of Israel, saying many times that the Jews of the Holocaust were forgotten and he was determined to make sure that that would never happen again. In 1981, one of the highlights of his life was witnessing the posthumous conferral of honorary citizenship upon Wallenberg. He will be sorely missed," concluded Hier.
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The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS and the Council of Europe.
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| For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036. |
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