The death of Rep. Tom Lantos

Rep. Tom Lantos of California died earlier today of cancer at the age of 80. Mr. Lantos was currently serving as the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and had earned a reputation as a champion of human rights, a position he adopted due to his personal experience. Mr. Lantos was a Holocaust survivor originally born in Budapest, Hungary. After being a victim of this atrocity, Mr. Lantos never forgot those whose helped enabled him to survive, and that inspired him to continually stand up for the voiceless around the world in order to try and spare others the suffering he endured.

I myself am the grandson of four Holocaust survivors all of whom, like Mr. Lantos, came to the United States seeking refuge after the war ended. To my grandparents and other survivors, Tom Lantos represented the greatness of this country, for he showed that it didn't matter where people came from and what they had been through in their past; upon arrival in the U.S., if you worked hard and remained dedicated, anyone could climb the ranks and rise up. To see Tom Lantos on TV, speaking with his distinctive Hungarian accent that my grandfather used to share, was the embodiment of how succesfully the many Holocaust survivors who had come to the U.S. have been at rising from the ashes. Mr. Lantos said it best himself:

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 upon announcing his retirement last month.

Today is truly a sad day for those of us who gained inspiration from the life of Tom Lantos, but it's nonetheless a day to celebrate the incredible life that he led.