Liviu Librescu

I was reading the paper yesterday about this dreadful, awful tragedy at Virginia Tech. One article, amongst many, brought me to tears. It was the one about Professor Liviu Librescu teaching that morning Solid Maths. He was in his mid 70's, born in Romania, sent to Soviet labour camp as a boy after his father was deported by the Nazi's. He emigrated to Israel with his wife some years later. He took a sabatical to USA, stayed, and had been teaching at Virginia Tech for a number of years. In fact he had loved his job so much he was still teaching long after retirement. He heard the gunshots and got his class to jump out of the window whilst he barricaded the door with his body. When the gunman shot through the door, he obviously took the full force of those bullets. One student in a letter to his wife said "I saw your husband still standing there. He was holding the door closed and looking over his shoulder to make sure everybody else was safe. It was the bravest thing I have ever seen.!" The commentator concluded "Let those he saved now make the most of it!"