[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 64 (Friday, April 20, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E809]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

[[Page E809]]



                      A TRIBUTE TO LIVIU LIBRESCU

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, April 20, 2007

  Mr. LANTOS. Madam Speaker, it is with deep sorrow that I rise today 
to mourn the passing of Liviu Librescu, a world renowned professor of 
aeronautical engineering who was tragically gunned down while saving 
the lives of his students at Virginia Tech this week.
  Madam Speaker, I am compelled to honor Mr. Librescu, not because he 
is a fellow Holocaust survivor and college professor who persevered and 
overcame so much, but because he was a human being so extraordinary 
that his life's journey embodies the word hero.
  Liviu Librescu was born in 1930 to a Jewish family in Ploiesti, 
Romania. During World War II, when Romania joined forces with Nazi 
Germany, he was imprisoned in a forced labor camp. Subsequently he was 
sent, along with his family and thousands of others, to a ghetto in the 
city of Focsani about 100 miles from his home. Hundreds of thousands of 
Jews from across Romania died in the Focsani Ghetto and in 
Transnistria, a Romanian-run Nazi killing field where Librescu's 
father, a lawyer, perished.
  Liviu survived the horrors of the Focsani Ghetto and the Holocaust 
and nobly committed his life to academia, studying aerospace 
engineering at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, where he 
received both his undergraduate degree in 1952 and his Masters in 1953. 
In 1969 he received his Ph.D. in fluid Mechanics from Academia de 
Stiinte din Romania.
  Madam Speaker, Liviu Librescu was a brilliant mind and quickly 
established himself as a top researcher at the Bucharest Institute of 
Applied Mechanics and the Academy of Science of Romania. But his 
refusal to swear allegiance to the destructive Communist regime in 
Romania ultimately left him jobless. Without means to support his wife, 
Marlene, and two sons, Joe and Arie, Librescu tried to leave Romania 
for Israel. But under the Romanian communist regime Jews were not 
allowed to emigrate. In 1978 the Romanian government finally permitted 
Liviu to leave, but only after a direct request was made by the Prime 
Minister of Israel--Menachem Begin--to Romanian President Nicolae 
Ceausescu.
  From 1979 to 1986 Librescu was a Professor of Aeronautical and 
Mechanical Engineering at Tel-Aviv University and Haifa's Technion. In 
1985 he took sabbatical from Tel Aviv University to research and teach 
at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, 
Virginia. He quickly became a vital part of the School of Engineering 
Science and Mechanics, and in 1986 decided to make Blacksburg and 
Virginia Tech his full-time home.
  Professor Librescu had a distinguished career as one of Virginia 
Tech's premier lecturers; he published hundreds of prestigious papers, 
received numerous awards and honorary degrees and did extensive 
research for NASA.
  Madam Speaker, these extraordinary accomplishments in the face of 
such tribulations made Livui Librescu a hero to those who knew him. But 
his actions on the morning of April 16, 2007 shine through as beacon of 
everything that embodies his heroic spirit. On that frightful morning 
when a deranged gunman chose Librescu's classroom as a target for his 
heinous, senseless murdering spree, Liviu Librescu barricaded himself 
against the classroom door in an attempt to lock the gunman out. He 
told his students to flee while he threw his body against the door. 
Librescu was fatally shot, but the gunman never managed to gain access 
and no student in the classroom was harmed.
  Madam Speaker, I do not think the English language has words worthy 
enough to describe the selfless courage and boundless humanity of Livui 
Librescu. The world has suffered a tragic loss with the end of this one 
life. I ask my collogues to join me in honoring the legacy of Liviu 
Librescu, which lives on in the people that he saved and in the hearts 
he inspired worldwide.

                          ____________________