In parallel, the group cultivated avant-garde literature, and was interested in Surrealists such as Gherasim Luca, Tristan Tzara, and Gellu Naum. During World War II, while Romania was allied to the Axis Powers ( see Romania during World War II), he was involved in anti-fascist activism, as one in a group which also comprised future essayist Iordan Chimet and future science fiction writer Camil Baciu. Ursu was a person noted for his left-wing convictions. Ursu and his wife Sorana had a daughter, Olga (m. His maternal grandparents, along with ten other family members (who were Northern Transylvanian Jews) were killed at Auschwitz. He continued his studies at Vasile Alecsandri High School in Galați, where he graduated in 1945.

Gheorghe attended primary school in Soroca from 1932 to 1936, and high school there until 1941, when his family moved to Galați. He had a sister, Georgeta (married Berdan). His parents, both surgeons, were Vasile Ursu (of Galați) and Margareta (of Măgura Ilvei, Năsăud County). Ursu was born in the Bessarabian city of Soroca, now in Moldova. A third one was jailed for confiscating his diary, most of which remains lost.īiography Early life and left-wing activism Much controversy arose over the new authorities' alleged procrastination, before two former officers were sentenced for instigating his murder. Ursu's death was a matter of international scandal and, after the Romanian Revolution of 1989, the subject of an inquiry initially headed by prosecutor Dan Voinea.

He was beaten to death by cell mates soon after, while in the custody of the Miliția. A journal in which he recorded his thoughts and opinions was the subject of a denunciation, which eventually led to his arrest. Ursu anonymously denounced the policies of Nicolae Ceaușescu, and was kept under surveillance by the country's secret police-the Securitate. For most of his life, Gheorghe Ursu was active in cultural circles, and maintained contacts with literary and artistic figures. A left-wing activist and avant-garde intellectual who joined the Romanian Communist Party as a youth, he was soon after disillusioned with the Communist regime, and became one of its critics. Gheorghe Emil Ursu (known to friends as Babu J– November 17, 1985) was a Romanian construction engineer, poet, diarist and dissident.

Destine Bizare by Gheorghe Brătescu