Holocaust Survivor Killed During Massacre While Saving Students

By Anastacia Mott Austin

In an ironic twist to the deadly Virginia Tech shootings Monday, a professor who had lived through the Holocaust was killed by the campus gunman on a day in which Jews worldwide marked the memories of those murdered during the Nazi genocide. April 16th is recognized in many countries around the world as Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Liviu Librescu, a Romanian Jew and citizen of Israel, will be remembered as a hero who died protecting his students by barricading the door to his classroom with his own body, while calling out to his students to "run!"

Librescu’s wife Marlena recalled to reporters that at first she had been told only that her husband had been injured during the shooting. "I looked for him in the hospitals all day but I didn’t find him." She then began receiving many emails from the students who had been in the professor’s class that morning, relaying Librescu’s heroic act.

"I lost my best friend," Marlena Librescu said. "He was a great person, who loved teaching more than anything."

Student Alec Calhoun, 20, who was in the class when the gunman began the attack, reported that he and his classmates heard gunshots from the classroom next door. Professor Librescu then ran to the door while the students hid behind tables and started jumping out of windows. Calhoun stated that before he himself jumped out of the window, he looked back into the classroom to see that the professor had stayed behind to block the shooter’s entrance into the room with his body.

A professor of math and engineering at Virginia Tech, Librescu was born in Romania. According to his son, Joe Librescu, during World War II he was first sent to a labor camp, and then interned in a Romanian ghetto city. Between 300,000 and 400,000 Romanian Jews were murdered during the war, according to Fox News.

He became an engineer after the war, but lost his job when he balked at declaring loyalty to the Communist leadership and asked to be allowed to move to Israel. Menachim Begin interceded on the family’s behalf, and they arrived in Israel in 1978.

The family visited Virginia in 1986 and decided to stay permanently.

At Virginia Tech, students honored Librescu’s heroism. Philip Huffstetler, a graduate student, told reporters, "He should be recognized as a hero. We should be in such great debt to his family for the rest of our lives."

Librescu’s colleagues in Romania mourned him as well. Well known and respected in his native land, he had taught widely and published many academic papers for which he’d received several honors and awards.

Ecaterina Andronescu, rector of the Polytechnic University in Bucharest, told reporters, "It is a great loss. We have immense consideration for the way he reacted and defended his students with his life."

In fact, said his son, "His work was his life…" Clearly that included his students. Thus it was that Monday, on a day of worldwide Holocaust remembrance, Professor Librescu gave his life for his work.