The Lively Foundation
It is with great sadness that The Lively Foundation learned of the death of Representative Tom Lantos. Congressman Lantos represented San Mateo and part of San Francisco, CA. Congressman Lantos was the champion of all oppressed or disadvantaged people in every part of the world. Many talk about this work; he actually did it.
Lively Artistic Director, Leslie Friedman, met Congressman Lantos in Warsaw, Poland, in 1993. She was in Poland with sponsorship of the US State Department and several of Poland’s national ballets. It was the 50th anniversary year of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Cong. Lantos was in Warsaw for the commemorative events with a delegation which included Vice-President Al Gore.
Dr. Friedman met Congressman Lantos at those events. He encouraged her to carry on her work in Eastern Europe. They met again at his Washington, D.C. office. “I was most impressed by his intelligence and gentle manner. The first thing one saw when entering his office was a huge blow-up of the photograph of the young man standing in front of a tank, in China, during the Tianamen Square uprising. Cong. Lantos shared that determination.”
"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 upon announcing his retirement last month.”
Representative Tom Lantos
Monday, February 11, 2008
Tom Lantos, human rights hero
