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Tom Lantos dies

By · February 11, 2008

Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the U.S. Congress, has died.

Lantos, 80, a Democrat from California, died at Bethesda Naval Hospital in suburban Washington, Jewish sources said Monday.

Lantos announced last month that this term would be his last in the U.S. House of Representatives; he had been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. Lantos was known as a strident defender of human rights.

The Democrats’ regaining of Congress in 2006 landed him in one of the most powerful positions in the House, the chairman of its Foreign Affairs committee.

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