Virginia Tech Hero Honored by Rabbis, Community
Jennifer Anne Perez
For Chabad.edu
Last Friday, April 13, 2007, Virginia Tech Professor Liviu Librescu quietly lit Shabbat candles with his wife Marlena, just as he had done each Friday before. But after barricading his body against a classroom door the following Monday, buying just enough time for his pupils to escape a gun-toting classmate on a rampage, that family moment to usher in the Jewish day of rest became the professor’s last.
Now, at the urging of his widow, it is up to Jewish students and women to forevermore light candles in Librescu’s memory.
In the dark hours first following the tragedy, two Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis not only stepped in to care for the Holocaust survivor’s body, but to comfort the 76-year-old’s grieving widow.
“I came in and saw a memo from another rabbi that mentioned that a professor was killed [in the Virginia Polytechnic Institute shooting],” said Rabbi Shlomo Mayer, director of the Chabad House of the University of Virginia and Charlottesville. “I had heard that his wife Marlena was Romanian, so since I am also Romanian, they thought it would be nice for me to get in touch with her. Rabbi Yossel Kranz, of Chabad of the Virginias, and I spoke for more than an hour about what we should do next.”
In the chaotic days following the brutal campus massacre, the pair has not only negotiated the early release of Librescu’s body from the medical examiner so it could be buried in Israel, but also comforted the Virginia Tech professor’s family. They’ve also counseled distraught students left in shock at the carnage that claimed friends and associates.
“We decided to visit Librescu’s wife so I could speak with her in her native tongue, Romanian,” continued Mayer. “My goal was to comfort her.”
Having a fellow speaker of Romanian no doubt helped her cope. One of their two sons, Joe Librescu expressed his gratitude from Israel that his mother had a native speaker to help her through the tragedy. But Rabbi Mayer was quick to downplay his role, instead giving credit to his colleague for his leadership during the tragedy.
“It was Rabbi Kranz who was critical in making sure the body was taken care of and sent back as soon as possible to Israel,” stated Mayer.
The local medical examiner’s office, overwhelmed by the bodies of 32 victims killed in the rampage, was originally slated to release Librescu’s body on Friday. That would have delayed its transport to Israel until after Saturday, the Jewish holy day of Shabbat. But according to Mayer, Kranz was able to negotiate and get Librescu’s body released much earlier.
After Kranz made certain that the body was treated with the respect and dignity of Jewish ritual, Librescu was flown to Israel on Thursday, accompanied by his widow and Rabbi Motti Seligson, who represented Chabad of the Virginias. Librescu, an professor of engineering science and mathematics who taught at Virginia Tech for more than 20 years, was scheduled to be laid to rest Friday morning north of Tel Aviv.
Only small details, released in the snippets of newspaper articles and brief cable news spots, have revealed much about a life that led Librescu from pre-war Romania to a Nazi-run forced labor camp, decades under the Iron Curtain, emigration to Israel and then the United States. His beloved wife loved him so much, said Mayer, that she dedicated her life to caring for him, including taking him from place to place because he never learned to drive. The professor, who was posthumously given Romania’s highest national reward for his heroism, was seen as genial and dedicated among both his academic peers and students.
President George W. Bush, in remarks at the United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Washington, D.C., singled out Librescu for his bravery and self-sacrifice.
At a makeshift Jewish memorial service on Tuesday, reported Mayer, the grief among the some 80 attendants was palpable.
“Everyone was overwhelmed and crying,” he said. “It was very hard to have a proper conversation. Everyone felt helpless. But it’s important to know that so many students are alive today because of this selfless hero.”
