The aftermath of tragic events always bring stories of harrowing plight and exemplary heroism to the fore. Instinctively, one recoils at pointing up any one single story for the fear of diminishing others–and in the wake of yesterday’s horrifying tragedy at Virginia Tech we’re sure to hear many stories that will test the limits of what we can bear. But one story that has emerged today has stuck with us, all the same. It has no particular connection to Washington, D.C., but it really deserves to be shared, far and wide.

Liviu Librescu was a professor in VPI’s School of Engineering Science and Mechanics, a position he held for two decades. His specialty was aeronautics. He was a specialist in crazy-sounding scientific fields, like the “dynamic instability of elastic and viscoelastic structures” and “aeroelastic optimization.” Over the course of a lengthy academic career, he won many honors, sat on many academic boards, and served as an editor to several scientific journals. By any measure, he led an extraordinary and accomplished life.

But one facet of his biography stands out from his life in academia, and places him in a context that anyone can fully understand. The man was a survivor. During World War II, Librescu was interned at a Nazi labor camp, and was later sent, along with many other Romanian Jews to a ghetto in the town of Foscani. Librescu survived that fearful period, only to find himself at the mercy of a Communist regime in Romania, to whom he refused to swear his loyalty, a move that halted his career. He was only able to escape the regime after Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin intervened on his behalf.