Israeli professor killed in US attack:: HAVIV RETTIG::Jerusalem Post

Joe Librescu, son of murdered Virginia Tech engineering professor Liviu Librescu, expressed overwhelming pride in his father's life, and in his death, on Tuesday.

"He's unique on multiple levels," Librescu told The Jerusalem Post by phone from the family's home outside Tel Aviv.

Professionally, "he's one of the finest researchers in his field in the world." As a father, Librescu said, Liviu Librescu "believed in excellence and was a strong figure."

"He saw himself as the ambassador of Israel to that part of the world, to an American university that had few Israelis but many representatives from the Arab world," Librescu said.

Liviu Librescu's life in Romania, which ended with the family's move to Israel in 1978, was difficult from the start. A teenager during WWII, he survived fascist Romania and life in the shadow of the Gestapo. His father was deported to a forced labor camp during the war, while Librescu spend part of the war in relative safety in Russia, Joe Librescu said.

"Afterward," he said, "he endured [communist dictator Nicolae] Ceaucescu's Romania."

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