A professor gives his life.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Virginia Tech Shootings, Liviu Librescu)

Liviu Librescu had already lived a life filled with danger and challenges before he became a professor of engineering at Virginia Tech. Librescu, who was 76, survived the Holocaust as a child when his Jewish family was imprisoned by the Nazi-dominated Romanian government. As an adult, he lost his job as an aerospace engineer for refusing to join the Communist Party under the totalitarian regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. Professor Librescu began teaching at Virginia Tech in 1985. In a telephone interview from Israel with the New York Times, his son, Yossi, said, "He found Virginia to be a place that allowed him to be inspired."

On the morning the shootings started, Librescu--who was teaching a class in solid mechanics--closed his classroom door and urged his students to escape out the windows, recalled senior Caroline Merrey of Baltimore, the third student to jump, in an interview reported in the Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada). Just after the last student leapt to safety, Cho managed to force the door open and shot Librescu to death.

"We had heard the gunfire coming from the classroom behind us, and we ...