The Holocaust survivor who saved a classroom

Student witnesses say Prof. Liviu Librescu saved their lives during Cho Seung-Hui's deadly rampage at Virginia Tech.

By Josh Mitnick | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
and Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of the Christian Science Monitor

from the April 20, 2007 edition

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Raanana, Israel and Jerusalem - Liviu Librescu had faced danger before. He survived the Holocaust to be persecuted under the regime of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu for requesting to immigrate to Israel.

On Monday, the professor was confronted with another kind of threat.

When the sound of gunfire neared his solid mechanics lecture inside Virginia Tech's Norris Hall, there was confusion, according to reports from student witnesses. They dove under desks, darted to the windows. But, students say, Librescu headed for the door, blocking the gunman from entering. As shots rang out, he stood there.

That act of courage gave his class priceless seconds to escape, saving them from Cho Seung-Hui's deadly rampage. But not himself.

"He was able to teach his last lesson of bravery in the face of hatred," said Joe Librescu on Thursday, moments before leaving to meet his father's coffin at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport. Professor Librescu will be laid to rest Friday morning in a cemetery in Raanana, a suburb of Tel Aviv.

His eldest son spoke from the family residence in Israel, where Librescu left in the 1980s to begin teaching at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. Joe Librescu said his father considered students like family, offering financial support, home hospitality, and even defending those with disciplinary problems.

"In everyone he saw some light. If they had the will to pursue study, he would help them do that," he said.

'He was a private man'

Raised in the southern Romanian city of Ploiesti, Librescu saw his father, a lawyer, deported to a labor camp when the country came under the domination of Nazi Germany during World War II.

Young Liviu and his mother were forced to relocate with other Jews to the city of Foscani, where the adolescent math whiz tutored students to help support the family. The family was reunited after the end of the war.

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