UNPO sadly mourns the death of US Rep. Tom Lantos, Congressman from the 14th District of California, who died on February 11, 2008 from complications of esophageal cancer, 10 days after his 80th birthday. First elected to Congress in 1980, Lantos rose to become chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2007. He was also a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The sole survivor of The Shoah (the 20th Century European Jewish Holocaust) to serve in Congress, Lantos was a lifelong champion of human rights.

Lantos was born in Budapest in 1928 and was 16 when the Nazis took the city in March 1944. Lantos was taken to a forced labor camp at Szob, a village about 65 km from the capital, from which he escaped twice. The second time he made it to a safe house in Budapest. The Red Army liberated Budapest in January 1945 and Lantos began studying at the University of Budapest in 1946. In 1947 he received a scholarship to study in the United States. He earned bachelors and master's degrees in economics from the University of Washington. Lantos settled in San Mateo County in 1950 and became an economics professor at San Francisco State. He made his first foray in to politics when he won a seat on the Millbrae school board, then in 1980 defeated GOP [Grand Old Party] incumbent Rep. Bill Royer to win election to the House. He and Annette Lantos, his childhood sweetheart and wife of nearly 58 years were, as Lantos put it, "full partners both in Congress and in life," and they continued their work right up to his final days. Tom Lantos was the founding co-chairman of the 24-year-old Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which Annette directed as a volunteer since its inception.  He also founded the Congressional Friends of Animals Caucus. 

Throughout his adult life Lantos sought to be a voice for human rights and civil liberties, taking the part of victims and oppressed people and acting strongly against any dictatorship and totalitarianism around the world. Tom Lantos actively supported many UNPO Members during his long political career and has always been a good friend of the UNPO community. UNPO is today missing a friend and the highest voice for freedom and justice in the American Congress.