Rep. Tom Lantos, a California Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced on Wednesday that he will not seek re-election this year because he has cancer of the esophagus.
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Lantos, 79, is the only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress and is known for his dedication to human rights issues. He is serving his 14th term as a House member.
FOR SUBSCRIBERSCBP leaders cut out of Trump ad buy decision
FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane
"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 in a statement. "I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country."
Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary. In 1944, as a teenager, he was sent to a labor camp but eventually escaped.















