He joined the anti-Soviet resistance after being pressured by the NKVD to spy on his students, eventually advancing from a platoon commander to the chairman of the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters.

Just before his graduation the Klaipėda Region was ceded to Nazi Germany in fear of full scale German invasion, and the institute was consequently evacuated to Panevėžys.

[16] Ramanauskas joined a partisan platoon operating in the environs of Nemunaitis and Alovė [lt] and was immediately elected its commander.

In October 1945, in Nedzingė he married Birutė Mažeikaitė, a former student at the Alytus Teachers' Seminary and fellow partisan fighter (codename Vanda).

The Bell of Freedom, 1947–49), Свободное слово (The Free Word, 1947–49), a Russian-language newspaper for Soviet soldiers, and Miško brolis (The Forest Brother, 1951–52).

[18] In fall 1949, Ramanauskas was further promoted to colonel and chief commander of the defensive forces of the Union of Lithuanian Freedom Fighters.

While in hiding he wrote three-part memoirs, which were hidden by trusted people and uncovered only in 1988–89 during the era of glasnost and first published as Daugel krito sūnų… (Many Sons Have Fallen...) in 1991.

The KGB formed a permanent operational group led by Petras Raslanas and Nachman Dushanski to capture Ramanauskas, which, according to Auksutė Ramanauskaitė-Skokauskienė [lt], had as many as thirty agents in 1956.

On October 12, barely alive, he was transferred to a hospital, where doctors noted his many wounds – his eye was punctured 5 times, he was missing genitals, had a bruised stomach, etc.

[2] Ramanauskas has been accused of supporting the Lithuanian Activist Front and commanding a paramilitary group that persecuted the Jewish community of Druskininkai in 1941.

[26][27] The Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and state-funded Genocide and Resistance Research Centre maintain that the allegations are "lies [...] spread first by the Soviet-era KGB secret police to discredit him.

"[28][29] Historian and politician Arvydas Anušauskas has similarly claimed that the allegations have their origins in a "Russian backed anti-Lithuanian disinformation campaign" led by the KGB officer and his torturer Nachman Dushanski.

[32] A book of memoirs by Ramanauskas, written between 1952 and 1956 and assembled by his daughter Auksutė Ramanauskaitė-Skokauskienė, was published in 1991 under the title Daugel krito sūnų ("Many sons fell").

[33] In 2018, the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre published an English translation of the work, entitled Many Sons Have Fallen in the Partisan Ranks.

In December 2017, Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon visited Ramanauskas's daughter and reportedly "expressed indirect diplomatic support to the memory of the freedom fighter.

"[35] In 2017, plans to erect a monument for the 100th anniversary of Ramanauskas's birth in his native New Britain, Connecticut were cancelled following the adoption of a council petition.