Va. Tech professor buried in Israel

The funeral of slain Virginia Tech Professor Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor who sacrificed himself to save his students during the brutal massacre at the US school earlier this week, took place in Ra'anana on Friday morning, attended by some 200 friends, family members, foreign diplomats and others who came to pay their respects.

Speaking at the ceremony, Librescu's son Joe lamented the questions he had never asked his father. "They're asking me today about your past, and I don't know what to tell them," he said. "I'm proud of you. I walk today with [my] head held high."

"Sometimes I didn't hear you, but my ears are now wide open to your legacy," he went on. "I'm doing my best, reaching to the moon - I know I can reach it because of you."

Librescu's wife, Marlena, mourned the loss of "not just a husband, but my best friend."

"I was blessed to be with him each day for 42 years - to learn from his wisdom, to receive his advice - and I thank you for giving me our two children. I'm now blessed to be with them," said Marlena.

"I ask forgiveness from you for every time I upset you. I hope you will protect your family from where you reside now," she said, adding, "I have only the good left from you.... May it go easy for you, my sweetheart."

The professor's other son, Arie, said his father had "always said to be strong."

"Father, I believe that at this moment you're looking down on us from above and saying, what is all this crowing around? I only did what I had to do. From our childhood, you taught us to care for people, to work hard, to succeed, but

You quoted the article — ...Librescu’s son Joe lamented the questions he had never asked his father. They’re asking me today about your past, and I don’t know what to tell them,” he said. “

And your comment was — “That son really sounds like a loser. If he doesn’t know, why didn’t he, at least, ask his mother. What a goof.”

Well, that’s not at all unusual for parents and kids. You have a common history, the time when you were there with either your father or mother. That’s a common knowledge, to a degree. Even that is not very clear at times.

Then you’ve got the history before you were there. And *that* gets to be very murky and unclear. What you hear, as you grow up are simply “bits and pieces” and little stories. You don’t get a whole comprehensive recounting. And so, as you grow up, you just leave that as it was told to you. But, it’s not the full and complete story. You just don’t know it.

I know this very well, from my own father, plus the fact of trying to do some genealogy. With genealogy you’re trying to make the simplest of connections and even *that* is difficult. It’s like, “Now, who was this person again?” And, “When did you know them?”, or “What did they do or where did they live?”

When you start going into all that — pretty soon — even though you know very well the “stories” you were told when you grew up — you find out that you *actually* know *oh so little* — very little — of what you thought you knew.

So, no..., that son has just realized that what he thought he knew (from what he was told by his father and his mother) is actually *oh so little* of the actual and complete history of his own father.

That’s true with *everyone*. Thus, you’re simply calling all people losers for what all find out, when they start going into their father or mother’s history.

One of the things that I did, before my father died, was to take him on some trips and start documenting things that I may have “vaguely” known, but didn’t really. I even found out that he was born in a different city than I thought. He showed me a house that he was born in (not there anymore), back in Indian Nation Territory.

Now, he (my father) doesn’t even know where his father was born. His brother (my uncle) doesn’t even know that. No one in the family knows that. I’m trying to find that out, right now, through some records. I’ve got a census report where he shows up, and then one where the familly is there but he (the father of my father) is not — showing he came between one spot (location) and another. But, again — no actual detail yet.

So, if such a simple thing like that (place of birth) is not known by an entire family — it’s not any wonder what that son in Israel says. It’s that way with all families and to greater or lesser degrees — but with absolute certainty that the families do *not know* the histories.

All you have to do to understand that, is talk to some “contemporaries” of your parents — directly — and soon you find that you actually *know nothing at all* (what little you did know).

Regards,
Star Traveler

The article states — Speaking at the ceremony, Librescu’s son Joe lamented the questions he had never asked his father. “They’re asking me today about your past, and I don’t know what to tell them,” he said. “I’m proud of you. I walk today with [my] head held high.”

Oh, that is so, so true, with all of us and in every family. After your father or your mother is gone, that’s when your realize that there were so many questions that you have — that now, you just can’t go and ask (as you always knew you could “at some time”). Well, the “some time” has passed, and now there is no one there to ask questions of anymore.

We only know about 1/1000 of our parent’s history, if even that. So many people they knew — we don’t know. So many connections they had — we have no idea. We knew we could always ask at some future time — when we got the chance, the time — on the next visit. We had good motives about finally getting some of this information from them, but now..., well, we’ll never know.

And so it goes with all of us...

Regards,
Star Traveler

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