17 April 2007
A 75-year-old Shoah survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in the shooting at a Virginia college that left 33 people dead and over two dozen wounded. Liviu Librescu threw himself in front of the shooter, who had attempted to enter his classroom. The mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, but all the students "lived because of him," as Asael Arad, one of his students, told Israel’s army radio. Librescu's wife, Marlena, told the NRG website that her husband had loved his job with "all his heart and his soul."
The couple immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978 and then moved to Virginia in 1986. In the deadliest shooting rampage in US history, the attacker, whose identity is still unclear, killed 32 people in two attacks two hours apart and injured many others. The bloodbath ended with the gunman committing suicide.
