Statue of late Bay Area congressman unveiled
BUDAPEST, Hungary — A statue of Hungarianborn U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever to serve in the U.S. Congress, was unveiled Thursday in Budapest as those attending praised the man known for his advocacy of democracy and human rights around the world.
A California Democrat who represented San Mateo County and part of San Francisco, Lantos remained in office from 1981 until his death in 2008.
Lantos frequently visited his homeland, often warning against anti-Semitism while also supporting Hungarian minorities in neighboring countries. “During his whole life, his heart was in Hungary,” said his widow, Annette, speaking at the unveiling ceremony on what would have been Lantos’ 90th birthday.
David Kostelancik, the top U.S. diplomat in Hungary, remembered Lantos as “Hungarian by birth and a dedicated American by choice” who worked to build consensus and strengthen relations between the two countries.
During World War II, the teenage Lantos, like many other Jews, was sent to a forced labor camp, this one not far from Budapest. He escaped but was caught and severely beaten, escaped again and managed to survive the final stages of the war with relatives in a Budapest safe house set up by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who helped save the lives of thousands of Hungarian Jews by issuing Swedish diplomatic passes.
In 1983, Lantos cofounded the bipartisan Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which after his death was renamed the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.
The bronze statue with a special red patina, depicting a slightly largerthan-life Lantos sitting on a bench with his favorite dogs, was created by Mamikon Yengibarian, a Budapest-based Armenian sculptor.