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| By israelinsider staff April 20, 2007 |
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The funeral of Virginia Tech Professor Liviu Librescu, who sacrificed himself to save his students during the massacre, took place in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ra'anana on Friday morning, attended by some 200 friends, family, diplomats and citizens who came to pay their respects to a modern-day hero.
Librescu, an internationally respected aeronautics engineer and lecturer, was an engineering professor and Holocaust survivor who left Romania for Israel and then the United States. As gunshots were heard outside he blocked the door of his classroom with his body, urging his students to escape out the windows, which they did, while taking the bullets himself.
Librescu's son Joe, speaking at the ceremony, expressed regret at not knowing enough about his father's history. "They're asking me today about your past, and I don't know what to tell them," he said, adding: "I'm proud of you. I walk today with head held high."
"Sometimes I didn't hear you, but my hears are now wide open to your legacy," he went on. "I'm doing my best, reaching to the moon -- I know I can reach it because of you."
Librescu's wife, Marlena, mourned the loss of "not just a husband, but my best friend."
"I was blessed to be with him each day for 42 years - to learn from his wisdom, to receive his advice - and I thank you for giving me our two children. I'm now blessed to be with them."
"I ask forgiveness from you for every time I upset you. I hope you will protect your family from where you reside now," she said, adding, "I have only the good left from you.... May it go easy for you, my sweetheart."
The professor's other son, Aryeh, said his father had "always said to 'be strong.'"
"Father, I believe that at this moment you're looking down on us from above and saying, what is all this crowing around? I only did what I had to do. From our childhood, you taught us to care for people, to work hard to succeed, but you never taught us to be heroes. It is more theoretical a lesson than aerodynamics," he said. "A hero must have the right combination of certain attributes, and you had them."
Aryeh said his father "used every spare minute to do what he loved," and referring to the subjects that his father taught, added that the "the courses in aerodynamics have ended. On the 16th of the month, you started a new career, teaching a new subject - heroism - [which] millions of students are learning."
He added special thanks for "a righteous man [from] an organization, Chabad, who drove five hours to mother and made sure the body would come to Israel as soon as possible." The man, Rabbi Danny Cohen, who is a Chabad representative in Hebron and a close friend of Aryeh Librescu, said at the funeral that "[Librescu's] last act lit a fire of unity throughout the world. This evening, tens of thousands of Jewish women will light Shabbat candles especially at the request of [Marlena]."
Romania presents family with medal
A representative of Romanian President Traian Basescu gave the Order of the Star of Romania medal in Israel on Friday to the Librescu family for the slain hero's funeral in Ra'anana on Friday, bestowing on his widow and children the award for his bravery and his contributions to science, Israel Radio reported.
"He gave his life for his students," Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind told mourners at a Brooklyn funeral home during a memorial service Wednesday. "It is the ultimate sacrifice, and the ultimate goodness, after all that he went through in his life." A ceremony was held in New York City prior to the body behind flown to Israel.
Although she was initially composed, she broke down as someone handed her her husband's golden wedding band - 42 years after their marriage. "He saved them. He saved them," she said quietly of her husband's students as she slipped the band on her finger, next to her own.
"He was a very human person," his wife said. "He wanted to help everybody."
When Liviu Librescu's native Romania joined forces with Nazi Germany in World War II, he was imprisoned in a labor camp, and then sent along with his family and thousands of other Jews to a ghetto in the city of Focsani. Hundreds of thousands of Romanian Jews were killed during the war. He was murdered on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day.
After the war, Librescu worked at a government aerospace company, but his career was blocked in the 1970s because he refused to swear allegiance to the Communist regime. He was fired after he requested permission to move to Israel, his son said adding that, in 1977, prime minister Menachem Begin personally intervened to get the family an emigration permit.
Librescu left Israel for Virginia in 1985 for a sabbatical year, but eventually made the move permanent. |
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