LIBRESCU Origin of surname
Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name derives from a personal characteristic or nickname.
This is a Romanian variant of Liber, in which the Romanian ending "-escu" means "son of". Liber means "free" in Latin, and also "book". Lieber is literally the masculine form of the German adjective Lieb meaning "dear". Names comprising Liber and Lieber can also derive from Lieb means "dear/beloved" in German, and can be a translation of the Hebrew Habib ("dear"). Jewish names comprising this word are also linked to Gottlieb ("beloved of God").
Jewish family names in this group include Livermann (in which the letter "b" is replaced by "v"), documented in Koeln, Germany, in 1135; Libermann, recorded in Wuerzburg, Germany, in 1212; Liebermann, mentioned in the 13th century in Slovakia; Liebirmann, found in 1360; Liebmann, in the 16th century; Liber, recorded in Budapest, Hungary, in 1580; Lieberles, (1675) and Lieber (1697) at the Leipzig fairs in Germany; Libmann and Libermann in 1784 in Alsace; Liewer in eastern France in 1891, and Libkind ("dear/darling child") in 1957 in France. Lieber is documented as a Jewish family name with Joachim Lieber, who visited the Leipzig fair in Germany in 1697. Other related family names include Liberboim, Liberbaum, Liberman, Liberson, Liberberg, Libertal. Distinguished bearers of the Jewish family name Liber include the Polish-born scholar and chief rabbi of France, Maurice Liber (1884-1956). Liber was also the pseudonym of Marc (Michael) Goldman (1880-1937), a Lithuanian-born leader of the Bund, and of the 20th century Romanian-born American Yiddish and English writer Benzion Librescu.
Liviu Librescu
(Personality)Liviu Librescu (1930-2007), professor of engineering and mechanics and Holocaust survivor, born in Ploiesti, Romania. His father, Izidor Librescu, a lawyer, was deported to Transnistria during by the Fascist regime of Romania while Liviu and his mother were interned in the Focsani ghetto. After WW2 he studied aerospace engineering at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, graduating in 1952, and then he earned a PhD in 1969. He was a researcher at the Institute of Applied Mechanics in Bucharest from 1953 to 1975, and then at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Aerospace Constructions of the Academy of Science of Romania. His research aroused the interest of foreign scientists after he managed to smuggle out of Romania a manuscript that was eventually published in the Netherlands. He was fired from his position following his repeated requests for immigration to Israel. He was allowed to leave Romania in 1978 only after the Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin intervened on his behalf with Nicolae Ceausescu, the Communist dictator of Romania.
In Israel Librescu was Professor of Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Tel Aviv until 1985, he also lectured at The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.
In 1985 he settled in the United States and served as professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, VA. He was the author of numerous studies of aeroelasticity and aerodynamics and served as a member of the editorial board of seven scientific journals and a guest editor of special issues of five other journals.
Librescu was one of the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech shooting on April 16, 2007. He died holding the door of his classroom shut while the gunman attempted to enter it and thus preventing him from entering until most of his students had escaped through the windows. A Holocaust survivor, he was killed on Yom Hashoah (Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day). He was buried in Raanana, Israel.
Librescu was awarded posthumously The Order of the Star of Romania with the rank Grand Cross with Collar, Romania’s highest civil order. The street in front of the US Embassy in Bucharest was named Bulevardul Doctor Liviu Librescu.