Jilava is a commune in Ilfov county

Ilfov County

Ilfov is the county that surrounds Bucharest, the capital of Romania. It used to be largely rural, but after the fall of communism, many of the county's villages and communes developed into high-income commuter towns, which act like suburbs or satellites of Bucharest...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, near Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

. It is composed of a single village, Jilava.

The name derives from a Romanian

Romanian language

Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

 word of Slavic

Slavic languages

The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

 origin (žilav, which passed into Romanian as jilav) meaning "humid place". Jilava was the location of a fort built by King

King of Romania

King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....

 Carol I of Romania

Carol I of Romania

Carol I , born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was reigning prince and then King of Romania from 1866 to 1914. He was elected prince of Romania on 20 April 1866 following the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup...

, as part of the capital's defense system. At a later date, the fort was converted into a prison.

This prison is the site where, on November 26-27, 1940, the Iron Guard

Iron Guard

The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...

 authorities of the National Legionary State

National Legionary State

The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...

 killed 64 political prisoner

Political prisoner

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....

s as revenge for the previous killing of their leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu was a Romanian politician of the far right, the founder and charismatic leader of the Iron Guard or The Legion of the Archangel Michael , an ultra-nationalist and violently antisemitic organization active throughout most of the interwar period...

 (see Jilava Massacre

Jilava Massacre

The Jilava Massacre took place during the night beginning on November 26, 1940, at Jilava penitentiary, near Bucharest, Romania. 64 political detainees were killed by the Iron Guard , with further high-profile assassinations in the immediate aftermath...

); it was also here that Ion Antonescu

Ion Antonescu

Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...

, dictator (Conducător

Conducator

Conducător was the title used officially in two instances by Romanian politicians, and earlier by Carol II.-History:...

) of Romania during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, was executed for war crimes in 1946 and where on 23 October 1971 the serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

, Ion Rîmaru

Ion Rîmaru

Ion Rîmaru was a Romanian serial killer dubbed "The Vampire of Bucharest". He terrorized Bucharest in 1970-1971.-Early life:...

 was executed by firing squad. The prison also was a detention site for political prisoners after the start of Communist rule in Romania

Communist Romania

Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...

.

It is a functioning prison today.