Originally published April 18, 2007 at 12:00 AM | Page modified April 18, 2007 at 2:02 AM
Holocaust survivor was killed saving students
Liviu Librescu survived the Nazi Holocaust. He died trying to keep a gunman from shooting his students in a killing spree at Virginia Tech...
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM — Liviu Librescu survived the Nazi Holocaust. He died trying to keep a gunman from shooting his students in a killing spree at Virginia Tech — a heroic feat later recounted in e-mails from students to his wife.
Librescu, an aeronautics engineer and teacher at the school for 20 years, saved the lives of several students by using his body to barricade a classroom door before he was gunned down in Monday's massacre.
His son, Joe Librescu, said Tuesday that his mother received e-mails from students shortly after learning of her husband's death.
"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."
Last student left
Joe Librescu told CNN that one of the e-mails was from the last student left in the room. The student said he looked back and saw his teacher struggling to hold the door, and "he was torn between jumping out the window and coming and helping my dad."
"He chose, and possibly made the right decision, to jump out the window," the son said.
The gunman, identified as 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui, killed 32 people before committing suicide, officials said, in what was the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.
Librescu, 76, had known hardship since his childhood.
When Romania joined forces with Nazi Germany in World War II, he was first interned at a labor camp in Transnistria and then deported along with his family and thousands of other Jews to a ghetto in the Romanian city of Focsani, his son said.
After the war, Librescu became a successful engineer under the postwar communist government and worked at Romania's aerospace agency. But his career was stymied in the 1970s because he refused to swear allegiance to dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's regime, his son said, and he was later fired when he requested permission to move to Israel.
After years of government refusal, according to his son, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin personally intervened to get the family an emigration permit. They moved to Israel in 1978.
![]()
Sabbatical to Virginia
Librescu left Israel for Virginia in 1985 for a yearlong sabbatical, but eventually made the move permanent, said Joe Librescu, who himself studied at Virginia Tech from 1989-94. The elder Librescu, who was an engineering and math lecturer at the school, published extensively and received numerous awards for his work.
"His work was his life, in a sense," his son said.
In Romania, the academic community mourned Librescu's death.
"It is a great loss," said Ecaterina Andronescu, rector of the Polytechnic University in Bucharest, from which Librescu graduated in 1953. "We have immense consideration for the way he reacted and defended his students with his life."
Professor Nicolae Serban Tomescu described Librescu as "strong and dignified."
"He had a huge affection for his students and he sacrificed his life for them," Tomescu told AP Television News.
Associated Press writer Alexandru Alexe in Bucharest, Romania, contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company
Senate Democrats split on health bill's fate
UPDATE - 06:32 PM
SC gov faces 37 charges he broke state ethics laws
U.K. started planning early for war, leaked papers show
Vaccine to kill nicotine buzz now in late tests by small drug firm
India's feeling bruised even before White House visit

PNW Magazine | Easy As Pie
A little friendly competition between professional pie-baker Kate McDermott and The Seatttle Times' Kathleen Triesch Saul is handled with great taste.
nwautos
Local riders say they've seen a surge in scooter interest in recent years, mostly from people wanting another commuting option. Seattle now ranks as o...
Post a comment
nwjobs
Post a comment
Michelle Goodman blogs about work/life balance.
Do you suffer from "sitting disease"?
Post a comment
- 'The Road' takes Viggo Mortensen to Mount St. Helens and Astoria, Ore.
- Tugboat sinks at Seattle waterfront pier
- Illegal workers quietly let go
- Child-support error costs nearly $21,000
- Vikings easily beat the Seahawks
- Craigslist adoption ad: A plea by young mother-to-be? A scam?
- Chase shrugs off loss of CD investors
- Woman stabbed by stranger in North Seattle
- Snow piles up on Cascade slopes
- Denny Triangle gains skyline, but tenants slow to come
- Illegal workers quietly let go
375 - Climate change speeds up since 1997 Kyoto accord
210 - Metro won't cut bus service after all
158 - New Husky recruit: Enes Kanter
99 - Historic health care bill clears Senate hurdle
96 - Tattoos at Mill Creek Church pierce skin, soul
85 - Middleton says Huskies "plan on scoring at least 50 points'' Saturday
82 - Jerry Brewer: Seahawks can't lean on the Hutch Crutch now
74 - UW, WSU once again meet to see who's worse
68 - Seattle woman charged with knife attack on boyfriend's ex
68
- Sprouts, raw fish on attorney's 'do not eat' list
- Tattoos at Mill Creek church pierce skin, soul
- Food-safety lawyer's wish: Put me out of business
- Illegal workers quietly let go
- Architects, chefs find 'kid' within to build Gingerbread Village
- Rediscovering Moab, 'the most beautiful place on Earth'
- It's possible to recover a life lost to hoarding
- Child-support error costs nearly $21,000
- 'The Road' takes Viggo Mortensen to Mount St. Helens and Astoria, Ore.
- Taste | The Great Pie Bake-off pits friends and fruit








