Elsa Anca-Barbuş was a linguist and translator by profession. In the 1940s, she and her future husband, Ioan Barbuş, were activists of the National Peasants' Party, which opposed the Sovietization of Romania. The party was dissolved when the communists took power after the rigged elections. Ioan Barbuş, as well as Elsa's father, Victor Anca, were sentenced to many years in prison.

From the 1960s until the fall of communism, despite constant surveillance by the Securitate, Elsa Anca-Barbuş and her husband were involved in anti-communist activities, their apartment becoming a meeting place for Romanian oppositionists. They were also active members of the Greek Catholic Church, which was banned by the authorities. The couple also passed on information about the repressions and persecutions taking place in Romania to the West.

Elsa Anca-Barbuş and her husband were particularly interested in Polish history and culture, especially "Solidarity" and the figure of Pope John Paul II. Their daughter Anca Maria Cernea, who learned Polish under the influence of her mother, is a great promoter of Polish culture in Romania. She was the one to accept, on behalf of her parents, the "Door to Freedom" award presented by the President of the Institute of National Remembrance, Jarosław Szarek Ph.D., awarded during the Defiant, Indomitable, Doomed Film Festival in Gdynia.

Anca-Maria Cernea Ph.D. receiving the "Door to Freedom" award granted to her parents Elsa Ance-Barbus and Ioan Barbus from the hands of the President of the Institute of National Remembrance, Jarosław Szarek Ph.D.,during the Defiant, Indomitable, Doomed Film Festival. Photo from the Defiant, Indomitable, Doomed Film Festival archive.