The Hero of Virginia Tech

Professor Liviu Librescu of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University led a remarkable life.  According to an account in Haaretz:

When Romania joined forces with Nazi Germany in World War II, the young Librescu was interned in a labor camp, and then sent along with his family and thousands of other Jews to a central ghetto in the city of Focsani, his son said. Hundreds of thousands of Romanian Jews were killed by the collaborationist regime during the war.

Librescu later found work at a government aerospace company. But his career was stymied in the 1970s because he refused to swear allegiance to the Communist regime, his son said, and he was later fired when he requested permission to move to Israel.

In 1977, according to his son, Israel's then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin personally intervened to get the family an emigration permit, and they left for Israel in 1978.

Librescu left Israel for Virginia in 1985 for a sabbatical year, but eventually made the move permanent, said Joe Librescu, who himself studied at Virginia Tech from 1989 to 1994.

The list of his honors and awards, publications, professional associations and classes taught is remarkable (HT:  Anne Lieberman).  It is also remarkable that, at age 76, he was still teaching undergraduates, early in the morning, as he was yesterday.

But nothing can be more remarkable than the manner in which he, at age 76, reacted to the attempted mass murder of his students. Here is how it happened, as described by Richard Mallalieu, one of the students who escaped to live as a result of what Liviu Librescu did:

In Monday morning's lecture on solid mechanics, all was quiet except for the sound of Professor Liviu Librescu's voice.

Then came the gunshots -- in the classroom next door. In an instant, Virginia Tech's Norris Hall, a building dedicated to the science of engineering, was torn apart by the worst shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

Junior Richard Mallalieu said he and about 20 classmates instantly dropped to the floor, ducking under and behind desks for what sounded like the first 10 shots.

"It wasn't like an automatic weapon, but it was a steady 'pow,' 'pow,' 'pow,' 'pow,' " Mallalieu, 23, said in a phone interview with The Sun. "We didn't know what to do at first."

Then the sound of the gunshots shifted. Coming closer. . . .

Mallalieu said his professor held the door shut while students darted to the windows. Some climbed on desks, ledges and a radiator cover to pull down the screens and kick at the metal-framed glass, Mallalieu said. Three windows easily gave way and swung open on hinges as the gunshots got louder. . . .

Once the windows for the second-floor classroom were open, Mallalieu and most of his classmates hung out of them and dropped about 10 feet to bushes and grass below, he said. . . .

Mallalieu said he never saw Librescu escape. "I don't think my teacher got out."

He didn’t. 

Naomi Ragen’s words start to capture how remarkable this was (HT:  Nurit):

“As someone who has survived a terror attack myself, I would like to say that the decision to stay put and save others when your own life is in danger goes against every human instinct; it is heroism and self-sacrifice on a scale that is unimaginable and that cannot even be fully appreciated by most human beings. For a (Holocaust) survivor to give up his life after two decades of peace and quiet in the most pastoral of settings is a tragedy for his family, and for all of us.”

Halfway around the world, the academic community in Romania also was mourning Librescu's death.  At Bucharest Polytechnic University, where he received an honorary degree in 2000, they were honoring him yesterday:

"It is a great loss," said Ecaterina Andronescu, rector of the Polytechnic University in Bucharest, where Librescu graduated with a degree in mechanics and aviation construction in 1953.

"We have immense consideration for the way he reacted and defended his students with his life."

At the university, people placed flowers on a table holding his picture and a lit candle. "We remember him as a great specialist in aeronautics. He left behind hundreds of prestigious papers," said professor Nicolae Serban Tomescu.

He survived the Nazis, and the Communists, and taught young students for more than 20 years while compiling a list of academic accomplishments that is daunting.  And then, in a flash, he showed a heroism we can barely understand, and can only honor.

Comments

[Robin L. Orenbuch]

This man's death diminishes all of our hopes to see justice prevail in the world. Let us honor him by standing for the best of humanity that he represents and tolerate no compromise with those who plan otherwise.

[J. Lichty]

may his memory be a blessing.

[SVC Alumnus]

Thank you, Professor for your many sacrifices. May your death not be in vain.

[Mary]

As I understand it, this man's main struggle is against the Communists - not only who blocked his career, but who would not allow him to emigrate. HE may as a tiny baby have been in a labor camp (born 1942?), but the big journalistic opportunity here is the discussion of his escaping the Communists. How did Begin break through the entrenched mental illness of the Romanian Communist leaders, when others throughout the Soviet Bloc also yearning for years to breathe freely, how indeed DID this Israeli intervention work? If it could have worked for one person, why not use such tactics to have released millions of Romanians, Bulgarians, GErmans, Poles, etc years before, or indeed, why did the West allow the Soviets to take these lands in the first place?

What happened to him as a tiny baby was not in his memory, nor did he truly participate as a conscious resister. But his struggle against the madness of the Communist, their terrorism and murderout gulags, THIS is what could be discussed in today's tragic death of an engineering professor.

Was he an Israeli? For 7 years? Or was he a Romanian? Or was he an American after 20 years?

BTW, the numbers do not add up regarding his career.

He is 76, therefore born in 1941 or 1942. He graduates with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in Bucharest in 1953? How old, age 11? Okay, maybe it was 1963?

If he was still teaching at 76, it may have been an attempt to get a pension. He started paying into the university pension system late in life, so he was hanging on in order to get a full pension?

If he was allowed into a prestigious university course in Bucharest during the postwar Communism, then he was, at least in his youth, a Communist. Apparently it was a change of heart when he saw a chance to get out, using the Israeli lobby, even risking his career there.

I have read many, many postwar Communist journals and stories, and I think that one must delve a little more into this man's real life story. If he had had any qualms about the Romanian Communist system, he would have been a windowcleaner at best. Ask anyone who has escaped from that horrible and disgusting life.

Mary

[Teshuvah]

Mary: Check your math. He was born in 1931. Further, if you live in a country taken over by communists, that does not make you a communist. He was not combating and resisting just communism. He was resisting evil. His final act defines who he was at heart. Zichrono LiVracha (Blessed Be His Memory).

[Tamara]

Mary, my husband was born in Cuba and I am 1/4 Hungarian so I have some limited personal knowledge with people from those countries. Things aren't so black and white as you are painting them. I don't know where you are getting the information that someone has to be a militant party member in order to advance in their educations, especially if they have the smarts to advance. It's not exactly the kind of environment that encourages anyone to be outspoken about their feelings about the regime anyway. If the man was in the secret police or one of the neighborhood snoops, I could understand your point, but please, I had relatives and friends stuck behind the Iron Curtain during that time and they were very anti-communist, even worshiped in secret, still they got their degrees. Cubans often get advanced degrees so that they can get jobs outside of Cuba and then defect. Dr. Elias Biscet is a pro-life Cuban doctor who is in prison now that he denounced Cuba's performing abortions that mothers weren't aware of, but before that, he was still pro-life, anti-communist and a DOCTOR. His wife is a nurse.

Am I understanding correctly that you are saying that Professor Librescu was teaching at age 76 in order to get a pension? So at age 76 what was his life expectancy and what did he plan to do with the pension? buy a yacht? Come on. You are sounding trollish. I'll tell that to one of my professors, in her 80's, and to my friends' kids' tutor, a lifelong teacher also in her 80s and subs fulltime at the public schools here because she loves to do it. Congress members continue working as seasoned citizens, why can't other people do the same?

I am completing my degree this week to start teaching at the old age of 46. I am debating graduate school even if its pretty impractical at my age. I pray that I will have many years of teaching up until and past my 80's too. My husband is a doctor, so I'm not desperate to get a pension. Its called personal fulfillment. You're sounding really petty to put it mildly. I don't know what you are implying about him, but I get very clearly what you are saying about Israel, that they are guilty for rescuing a Jew and they didn't rescue millions of others in the same way.

Have you been watching too many movies?

How to maybe rescue millions of Germans, Romanians, etc:

n London, Bond is met by Moneypenny who is all dressed up ready for a date which leaves Bond "devastated." She takes him to the mission room where he is briefed by Bill Tanner who tells him that a routine scan of the Severnaya complex by their spy satellites has apparently revealed the presence of the stolen Tiger. The new M [who Tanner dismisses as "the evil queen of numbers"] arrives and discounts rumours that the Russians had developed the GoldenEye satellite defence system, a weapons platform capable of firing electro-magnetic pulses at given targets. But while they are watching live feeds from their satellite, they see the two Migs approach the complex and a blinding flash that knocks out their satellite. The GoldenEye weapon has hit Severnaya, causing massive short circuits in all of its electronics. The complex explodes as Simonova cowers under falling masonry. The electronics in the fighters are also affected - one of them explodes and the other ploughs into the complex, causing the satellite dish to crash to the ground. In the aftermath, Simonova, crawls from the wreckage in search of Boris......and they rescue everybody and go home, The End

[Yael]

May the soul of Liviu Librescu be forever bound to the bond of life.

And should we ever find ourselves facing such evil, may G-d grant us the clarity, conviction and courage to follow his example.

[Richard Loehwing]

He is a true Hero.

Please advise if a donation can be made for a monument to Honor his selfless act of courage.

Please recommend the best legitimate cause especially if located at Virginia Tech.

Thank You

[Jpundit]

Richard: Here is the link to the Librescu Family Condolence Page:

http://www.chabad.edu/templates/articlecco.html?AID=504498

[Beth Wellington]

Maybe this entry could read a hero at Virginia Tech. On April 16, Dr. Granata and others also saved lives. "Loss Creates a Terrible Contrast in Lives So Similar: The Husbands of Identical Twin Sisters Both Worked in Norris Hall. On Monday, Only One Came Back." by Kirstin Downey,
Washington Post, April 19, 2007; Page A10.

[coach purse]

There’s a place in your heart and I know that it is love. This place could be much brighter than tomorrow and if you really try You’ll find there’s no need to cry.