Professor’s Violent Death Came Where He Sought Peace

By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: April 19, 2007

Prof. Liviu Librescu faced many trials in his 76 years, growing up and living in Romania. There were the Nazis, who imprisoned his family when he was a child. Then there was the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, which forbade him from working when he refused to join the Communist Party.

But it was a trial in a most unlikely place that proved to be deadly. On Monday, Professor Librescu faced danger when a student armed with pistols and the determination to kill approached the room where the professor was teaching a class in solid mechanics.

Professor Librescu never moved from the door of Room 204 in Norris Hall at Virginia Tech, witnesses said, even as the gunman, Cho Seung-Hui, was shooting. Directing his students to escape through windows, Professor Librescu was fatally shot.

Yesterday, a funeral was held for the professor in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn. Professor Librescu’s body was taken there by Chesed Shel Emes, a Jewish organization that specializes in helping people in times of trauma, said Rabbi Edgar Gluck, a member of the group, who said that the professor had been struck by five bullets. The professor’s body was to be flown to Israel last night and he will be buried before sundown today in Raanana, near Tel Aviv, Rabbi Gluck said.

About 300 people showed up at the Shomrei Hachomos, an Orthodox chapel. They arrived to recognize a remarkable, resilient life and an act of courage that ended that life.

“This was a man who gave his ultimate for his fellow man,” Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn told the mourners. “He gave his life for his students.”

In Blacksburg, Va., one of those students, Caroline Merrey, 22, described some of the chaos that unfolded inside Room 204.

“We had heard the gunfire coming from the classroom behind us, and we just reacted to it and headed for the windows,” Ms. Merrey said. “Professor Librescu never made an attempt to leave.”

Ms. Merrey said she and about 20 other students scrambled through the windows as Professor Librescu shouted for them to hurry. She said she felt sure his actions helped save lives.

“He’s a part of my life now and forever,” she said. “I’m changed. I’m not the person I was before Monday.”

Speaking to a reporter by telephone from Israel, Professor Librescu’s son, Yossi Librescu, 40, a computer engineer, said he took some solace in the appreciation being expressed for his father.

“He was passionate about life,” Mr. Librescu said. “He had no fear of death.”

He said that his father was born in Romania in 1930. After surviving the Holocaust, Mr. Librescu said, his father became a refusenik in Romania and lost his job as an aerospace engineer. But in 1976, Liviu Librescu secretly published a book in Norway that advanced a theory of aerospace technology that grabbed the attention of others in the field. In 1978, after lobbying by groups in Israel, he was permitted to leave Romania and settle there. He began teaching at Virginia Tech in 1985, university officials said.

Mr. Librescu said that the bucolic environs of Blacksburg provided a respite from the rigors of his father’s earlier life. His house was built on the edge of a forest and he took long walks daily, enjoying nature. He listened to classical music and settled into the calm, productive rhythms of his new existence.

“He found Virginia to be a place that allowed him to be inspired,” Mr. Librescu said.

Professor Librescu’s coffin, draped in black cloth, was wheeled into the chapel just after 2 p.m. Mr. Hikind spoke briefly and another man sang a sad lament in Hebrew. At 2:18, several men lifted the coffin to their shoulders and carried it outside.

The professor’s wife, Marlena, stood outside and spoke about her husband.

“His life was only his family and his students,” Ms. Librescu said. “Everybody told me he was like a father.”

Down the block, men dressed in black marched toward New Utrecht Avenue, carrying the coffin. As the N train screeched overhead, the words of the Kaddish were recited.

“He was always, always helping,” Ms. Librescu said. “But he was not able to help himself.”

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