Hero #2 Liviu Lebrescu

A survivor of the Holocaust in Romania, Liviu Lebrescu was fired from his government aerospace job when he applied to emigrate to Israel. Then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin intervened personally in 1977 to secure Librescu's passage to Israel the following year.

He earned a repuation as a brilliant aeronautical engineer and researcher, with an official resume running 61 pages.

He came to the U.S. and taught engineering at Virgina Tech, where he died recently shielding his students from gunfire. He was 76. [Source]