's freedom denied and then to find it and to insist that Americans stand for spreading the benefits of freedom and prosperity to others . '' Lantos , who was serving his 14th term in the House , was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in December . He announced last month that he would not seek a new term . `` 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 at the time . `` I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country . '' Watch Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid remember Lantos '' The lawmaker is the only Holocaust survivor to have served in Congress . The Hungarian-born Lantos came to the United States in 1947 after surviving a forced-labor camp in his Nazi-allied homeland . He escaped and was sheltered in a Budapest safe house set up by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg , who was
WASHINGTON -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Rep. Tom Lantos , the Democratic chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs , died Monday due to complications from cancer , his office said . Lantos was 80 . Rep. Tom Lantos represented his Northern California district for 14 terms . He died at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda , Maryland , surrounded by his wife , Annette , daughters Annette and Katrina and many of his 18 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren , according to his office . Lantos ' life was `` defined by courage , optimism , and unwavering dedication to his principles and to his family , '' said his wife , Annette , his childhood sweetheart , in a statement the House of Representatives released . Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Monday that she was `` quite devastated '' by the death of her `` dear , dear friend . '' She called him `` a true American hero '' and `` the genuine article . '' `` He 's going to be really , really missed , '' she said . Rice described Lantos as `` the embodiment of what it meant to have one