By Katrina Lantos Swett
July 10, 2026
My father came to the United States out of the horrors of the Holocaust. He lost most of his family during the Nazi’s “Final Solution” in Hungary, and he only survived by escaping a forced labor camp and returning to his native Budapest, where he joined the underground resistance. After the war, he won a scholarship to study at the University of Washington and, with a grand total of $5 and a small piece of Hungarian salami in his pocket, he arrived at New York Harbor on Aug. 23, 1947. He wrote the following letter to his surviving relatives back in Hungary:
“Upon seeing the Statue of Liberty, I felt that the gates of a new, free, more humane and joyous world were opening to me. I spent approximately two hours with the passport office and at 2:30 pm, finally I stepped onto the soil of America. No one who has not experienced it can understand the feeling of release and liberation which the first contact with this wonderful land engendered in me; to be in bodily contact with this ground was sheer joy. Everyone I met with seemed so friendly, so helpful and so generous.”
His kind hosts took him on a nighttime tour of the city, and his wonder at the sights and the gifts he received is full of wide-eyed charm.
“The night was like a dream. Millions of giant neon lights illuminated the streets and millions of well dressed happy people crowded the streets. It was hard to believe that there existed so many lucky people in the world. Then there were the theaters, the movies and the restaurants in unbelievable quantity and quality. I have never eaten so much food in my life, and I saw more and felt more joy than in all my previous life combined”.
Over three decades later, my father, Tom Lantos, somewhat miraculously, would be elected to Congress. He was the only Holocaust survivor ever to achieve this distinction. In a fortuitous bit of foreshadowing, one of the first people he met upon arrival to the U.S. was a member of Congress. I smile every time I read his description of that encounter:
“My first new acquaintance (besides the welcoming committee from B’nai B’rith) was a Congressman from New York. He asked me many questions and treated me with such respect and friendliness; further evidence of the warm-hearted friendliness of Americans, even of such an important member of the government.”
As a first-generation American and the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, I have a particular brand of patriotism – the variety that is not only grateful for the many blessings of life in this country but also keenly aware of how different my story would have been if America had not opened her doors to my father, and then my mother, almost 80 years ago.
As I read the enthusiastic, grateful observations from a 19-year-old Hungarian Holocaust survivor who would go on to found the Congressional Human Rights Caucus and serve as Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, I find myself asking: What would Tom Lantos say to America at this memorable hinge of history?
My father was certainly clear-eyed about our country’s many shortcomings and often spoke of the need, in his words, to “close the hypocrisy gap,” namely, the chasm between our magnificent founding ideals and the many ways we have fallen short as a nation. At this moment, he would be horrified by the normalization of antisemitism in our politics and the resurgence of white nationalism and other forms of hate in our society. He would lament the dearth of basic civility in our society and the unwillingness to engage constructively with those with whom we disagree. He would be baffled by the growing popularity of socialism among too many young Americans, and he would be deeply disturbed by signs of democratic backsliding.
Despite his alarm, I believe he would still tell his fellow Americans, those born in the USA and especially those lucky “Americans by choice,” that we are blessed beyond measure to be part of this extraordinary American quilt. He would tell us that we have a privilege and sacred responsibility to channel our gratitude for America into tireless, unceasing efforts to make her better, for our own families and for all citizens. Indeed, that is what he did in his own life. He did not merely build the American Dream for our family; he went into public service and for nearly three decades in Congress he worked to make the American Dream possible for all people. He even went beyond that and, as one of Congress’ most passionate and eloquent advocates for human rights, he worked to create a freer, more just world for everyone.
In his last public statement before he succumbed to cancer, my father said, “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. I will never fully be able to express my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country.”
My father knew that it is important, even vital, to be grateful for what we have been given as citizens of this great country. But he also knew that gratitude without action, without applying ourselves to the ongoing work of this great American experiment, is just sentiment. As we move toward the next 250 years of America, I will often think of my father as a 19-year-old, newly arrived immigrant to the United States, and I will try to channel his sense of wonder and thankfulness. And I will also think of his example of throwing his whole self into the task of forming a more perfect union. I hope you will, too.
Dr. Katrina Lantos is former chair of the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and president of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice.
THE ARTFUL DILETTANTE 