http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/14/BABDV2JI6.DTLLantos remembered at jam-packed D.C. memorial service
Zachary Coile, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Thursday, February 14, 2008
(02-14) 12:10 PST WASHINGTON - --
Former Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, was remembered Thursday for a lifetime battling oppression at a Capitol Hill memorial featuring praise from top world leaders and a musical tribute from his friend, U2 frontman Bono.
In a jam-packed Statuary Hall, speaker after speaker praised the Hungarian-born Lantos as a man who survived one of history's darkest episodes to emerge as one of the world's leading advocates for human rights.
"He knew what was possible because he had lived through the unimaginable," United Nations Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon told a crowd filled with senators, top diplomats and human rights activists.
Lantos died at age 80 Monday at Bethesda Naval Medical Center of esophageal cancer, ending a 27-year tenure in Congress in which he rose to become chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the 14-term lawmaker "a true American hero" for his passionate advocacy for the downtrodden. She also described Lantos as a gentleman, who loved his family and found joy in life.
"His legacy is far-reaching - from his native Hungary to Northern California to so many places across the world," Rice said.
"I could imagine prisoners in China and Tibet, people sadly expelled from their homes in Darfur, people all over the world for whom Tom fought, knowing that a great champion has passed," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime friend.
Lantos was a fierce defender of Israel, and Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni said her country's citizens would never forget his support. "We have lost a great leader and Israel has lost a great friend," she said.
Lantos' life story was, as several speakers noted, the stuff of novels: He twice escaped the Nazis, eventually making it to a safe house in Budapest run by Swedish humanitarian Raoul Wallenberg, where he aided the anti-Nazi underground. He lost nearly all his family to the death camps, yet after the war he somehow found his childhood sweetheart, Annette Tillemann, who also had lost most of her family in the Holocaust. The two were married in 1950.
Lantos' friends and family remembered their relationship as a love affair that never faded with time. Annette Lantos helped run his congressional office and led the Congressional Human Rights Caucus he co-founded.
"You were the light of Tom's life," said Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.
Annette Lantos, whose cousin is actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, brought the crowd to a hush as she described their lifelong partnership. "The love Tom and I shared for 70 years is alive and continues to sustain me," she said.
Bono, who worked with Lantos on AIDS funding and global anti-poverty issues, took up the same theme, describing a recent evening that he had shared with Lantos and his wife at their Capitol Hill apartment. Despite his illness, the lawmaker told the rock star, "love cannot be defeated."
With that, Bono began an a capella version of the Beatles' "All You Need is Love," and the crowd of dignitaries quickly joined in.
The most poignant remarks came from Lantos' family.
His daughter, Annette Tillemann-Dick of Denver, described a caring father who urged his children to dream big and had a soft spot for animals. Lantos was well-known on Capitol Hill for carrying on official business with his poodle, Gigi, at his side.
"He and my mother shared a faith in the healing power of canine companions," she said, drawing laughter.
His other daughter Katrina Swett of Bow, N.H., talked about Lantos' love of music - classical, Hungarian folk songs and Broadway show tunes. She noted how delighted her father was, on his 75th birthday, when many of his 17 grandchildren serenaded him with the song, "If I Was a Chairman" - a takeoff on the Fiddler on the Roof song, "If I Were a Rich Man."
Lantos - then the ranking member on the Foreign Affairs Committee - finally got his wish last January when Democrats took power the House.
Tomicah Tillemann, Lantos' grandson, urged the crowd not to mourn his grandfather's death, but to focus on the lessons of his life. During his final hours in his hospital room, Lantos looked into the teary faces of his children and grandchildren and sought to brighten their mood, Tillemann said.
According to his grandson, Lantos told them, "If you knew how happy I was, you would not be sad. I am completely at peace with what I have achieved for my country and my family."
Video en:
http://video.nbc11.com/player/?id=218107
