Ion Gavrilă Ogoranu

Ogoranu was born in a Romanian family as one of three children, in Gura Văii, Făgăraș County, in the Țara Făgărașului region of southeastern Transylvania. He studied at Radu Negru High School in Făgăraș, where he was a member of the Frăția de Cruce "Negoiu" (The Brotherhood of the Cross), the youth wing of the Iron Guard. He attended classes at the Department of Agronomy, University of Cluj. Between 1941 and 1944, he was imprisoned for "forbidden activities" by the Ion Antonescu regime.

After the end of World War II, Ogoranu was involved in fascist and anti-communist activities in Cluj. For 7 years (1948 – 1955), he led the resistance formation Grupul Carpatin Făgărășan. For his activities he was sentenced in absentia to 19 years in prison and, later, in 1951, to death. For 29 years, the Securitate were unable to capture him. He was caught in 1976, after 21 years on the run, at the house of the widow of a political prisoner, Ana Săbăduș, who later became his wife. He was reportedly spared execution at the direct intervention of U.S. President Richard Nixon.[1]

Ogoranu's life is the subject of the 2010 film, Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man. At the 60th Berlin International Film Festival, the movie attracted protests from organizations such as the Elie Wiesel National Institute for Studying the Holocaust in Romania,[2] which demanded that the film be pulled due to glorification of antisemitism.[3] The Festival refused to pull it, arguing that they don't believe in censorship, but they are aware that Ogoranu made publicly "extremist, racist, and antidemocratic statements" and that they do not support such views, and that the movie did not support such views either.[3]