James Taranto, writing in Best of the Web for the WSJ's Opinion Journal of April 17, tells a gripping story of heroism at Virginia Tech. The story relates how a Rumanian-born Holocaust survivor interposed his body between the shooter and his students, giving the students time to escape out the windows.  Let him tell it:

He Died Saving His Class
By James Taranto

For those of us whose job it is to have opinions, an event like yesterday's massacre at Virginia Tech is a bigger challenge than, say, a terrorist attack. The murder of 32 people by South Korea native Cho Seung-hui is no less evil than massacres carried out by suicide bombers or hijackers, but it is harder to comprehend. Terrorism is carried out by an organized enemy with a political agenda; we can rally to defeat the enemy. The Virginia Tech shooter seems to have been a lone nut. He murdered all those people only to render his own life a nullity by committing suicide in the end.

So let's just note one act of heroism amid the horror, as reported by the Jerusalem Post:

Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter when the [murderer] attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, "but all the students lived--because of him," Virginia Tech student Asael Arad--also an Israeli--told Army Radio.

Several of Librescu's other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he had blocked the gunman's way and saved their lives, said Librescu's son, Joe.

"My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee," Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. "Students started opening windows and jumping out."

Librescu was a Holocaust survivor who escaped communist Romania for Israel in 1978 and moved to Virginia in 1986. By coincidence, he was murdered on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Some coincidence.  Professor Librescu's exploit--though deserving of the highest civilian honor at the disposal of President Bush [time will tell if he is cognizant]--failed to attract the attention of The New York Times. He is barely mentioned here [third paragraph from the bottom] as one of the two faculty victims named:

Some of the professors who were killed were named. Among them were Prof. Liviu Librescu, a Romanian Israeli who has lived in the United States for several years, and Dr. G.V. Loknathan, who was originally from India and became an American citizen after arriving in the United States in 1977.

It is not as if Professor Librescu was some academic mediocrity. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and had enjoyed international repute for his contributions to aeronautical engineering. In the welter of calls for "healing," not to mention the predictable yawps about gun control, it is heartening to learn of the heroism of this man.  Doubtless there were other heroes of that awful day, equally consigned to media indifference.  CBS, at least, gave us his photo.

Add his name to your list of unsung heroes.

Urge the White House to award him the national honors he deserves.

***

Webmaster's addendum, 2007.04:19:

To honor Professor Liviu Librescu
Michelle Malkin

Here's a petition to memorialize VTech hero, Dr. Liviu Librescu, by renaming Norris Hall in his honor. ...

Contributed by 72nd TCS on April 19, 2007 at 01:51 PM in Current Affairs, John "72nd TCS" Werntz, The American Warrior | Permalink

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