Madam Speaker, it is with a heavy heart that I rise today in support of this resolution. Like all of my colleagues, I was deeply saddened to learn that our good friend, the distinguished gentleman from California, Tom Lantos, had passed away. And he was our good friend, unfailingly courteous and kind and helpful to all.   

Tom has left an inspiring legacy, and his passing is a great loss to our country and to the entire world. Throughout his life, Tom devoted himself to human rights and to the cause of persecuted racial, religious, and ethnic minorities. As a survivor of the Holocaust, and the only survivor ever to serve in Congress, he had seen firsthand real evil, and he became a tireless advocate for human rights.    

As a youth, he was a member of the anti-Nazi underground, and his life's work was built on opposing anti-Semitism and all forms of racism and oppression and attempted genocide, and on supporting Israel, the country that emerged as the haven for the survivors and refugees from the Holocaust.    

Congressman Lantos once said, ``I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country.'' But it is this Nation that will never be able to express adequately its gratitude to this great man. His life and devotion to human rights should serve as an inspiration to us all.    

My thoughts and prayers, our thoughts and prayers, and those of a grateful Nation, are with Annette and with the rest of Tom's family and friends during this sad time. And in this hour of bereavement, as we mourn the loss of this great man, what can we finally say other than to thank God for Tom's life and work, and to repeat that ancient refrain, ``The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.''