Liviu Librescu
Dr. Liviu Librescu, an accomplished scientist and engineering professor, died in April saving his students from the gunman who had gone on a killing rampage at Virgina Tech. Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who was interned at a labor camp as a boy and deported to a Romanian ghetto, told his students to jump from the windows of the second-floor classroom, while he barricaded the door with his body. He was shot and killed through the door. Our members voted Dr. Librescu their number one choice.
In an interview with Beliefnet, Librescu’s widow, Marilena said, “I was not surprised. I know Liviu very well, and I understand his last decisions. He cannot jump first and leave the young students there in the classroom.” According to Marilena, many of the students Librescu saved emailed her to let them know of his actions that day, writing, “We did not lose only a teacher, a mentor, but also our second father.”
One of Librescu’s students, Andrey Andreyev, tried to get him to flee with the rest of the class, but the 76-year-old professor refused. As Andreyev made his way out of the window, he turned and saw Librescu still blocking the door.
In a recent interview with Beliefnet, Andreyev, 20, says he plans to follow in his research advisor’s footsteps by becoming a professor himself. “What he did was an unbelievable thing,” said Andreyev. “But, what he did, to me, has always been just a final proof of what he was like as a person. He would always do anything for his students.”
This year, Beliefnet has chosen Liviu Librescu is the Most Inspiring Person of 2007 for his heroic actions and the sacrifice he made to protect his students.
Greater love hath no man than he who lays down his life for his friends.
God speed, Dr. Librescu; may your name never be forgotten.
(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: Sondra K)
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