Washington, DC, November 13, 2023 – The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice today released the following statement from Annette Tillemann Lantos, Chair Emeritus of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and widow of the late Congressman Tom Lantos:
“At 92-years-old, I am counted among the ever-dwindling number of first-hand witnesses to the horrors of the Holocaust. My youth was shaped indelibly by the experience of having my entire world turned upside down when the Hungarian government chose to collaborate with the Nazis in their grotesque ‘final solution’ in Hungary. This resulted in the murder of nearly my entire family and hundreds of thousands of my fellow Hungarian Jews. My husband Tom Lantos, who will forever be the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the U.S. Congress, and I devoted our lives to fighting for the human rights and dignity of people around the globe, as well as advocating for the Jewish State of Israel. To us, this work was the most powerful response and rebuke we could offer to those who had sought to exterminate our people from the face of the earth.
Tom and Annette Lantos
I have been blessed and fortunate to have called America my home since 1950 and to have raised my own family in a place with freedom beyond anything I could have dreamed of as a young girl in Hungary. This country has always inspired me and filled me with gratitude. Although it took many years to overcome the fear that one day I or my family would be targeted for being Jewish, I fundamentally came to believe that the United States was a country that had, by and large, evolved beyond the ancient and persistent hatred of antisemitism. I believed that this was a place where Jews like me would always be safe, and that this country would always stand with my Jewish brothers and sisters in Israel.
The events of the past several weeks have, of course, reconfirmed the genocidal intentions of groups like Hamas and its backers. Seeing the inhuman and brutal attacks on Israel brought memories and feelings from my childhood flooding back, and I have been powerfully reminded of the fact that the hatred of Jews remains, inexplicably, deeply entrenched across the Middle East. But what I could not have foreseen was the way those attacks would have unleashed a global outpouring of antisemitism, including in my own country. I could never have imagined that watching the slaughter of my people in Israel would lead to rejoicing in the streets of Australia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Brazil, dozens of other places and, indeed, in the United States of America. I would never have supposed that a terrorist organization without even the slightest sense of morality or respect for human life would be hailed as liberators, while Israel would be demonized and vilified at every turn for its military response. Such things seem unimaginable, yet they are unfolding before my very eyes.
My husband is no longer with us, and I feel keenly the absence of his singular voice. I wish he were here to forcefully condemn those who exult in Israel’s tragedy, those who believe that this complex conflict can be reduced to a simplistic interpretation of a Palestinian “David” versus an Israeli “Goliath,” those who call for the outright destruction of the only democratic state in the Middle East in the same breath that they hail the Hamas murderers as “liberators.” I only wish I could speak with his eloquence and moral authority on these topics.
At my advanced age, I cannot do many of the things I once did as I fought for human rights and justice for all alongside my beloved Tom. But I recognize that I still have my own voice, and I intend to use it to my last breath in defense of my people and the one nation on earth that can guarantee our survival – after millennia of people attempting but always failing to destroy us.
To this end, I plan to attend the March for Israel in DC, taking place tomorrow, November 14. I will not be able to march on my own. I will need one of my 17 grandchildren – or perhaps one of my 30 great-grandchildren – to push me in my wheelchair. I will not be able to shout and cheer with the vigor of my youth. But I will be there, if my health allows, as a witness to the horrors that nearly wiped out my people once before and a bulwark against the forces that would like to see the job done, once and for all. I will do this thing for my people, the Jewish people, and for the State of Israel. I will do it for the family that Tom and I were able to create in this country, and I will do it for future generations of Jews.”
For more information or to request an interview, please contact Chelsea Hedquist at press@lantosfoundation.org.
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About the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice: The Lantos Foundation was established in 2008 to carry forward the legacy of Congressman Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the U.S. Congress and a leading human rights champion. The Foundation works with a range of partners and often in cooperation with the U.S. Government on issues that span the globe. The Foundation’s key areas of focus include human rights issues related to religious freedom, rule of law, internet freedom and activist art. The Foundation also administers the Lantos Congressional Fellows Program, supports human rights advocates, activists and artists through its Front Line Fund grant program, and awards the annual Lantos Human Rights Prize to honor and bring attention to heroes of the human rights movement.