Fort 13 Jilava is located in the south of Ilfov county, being built according to the plans of General Henri Alexis Brialmont as part of the Fortifications of Bucharest, the defense belt, with forts and batteries, that encircles Bucharest. It was used as a political prison, the first time after the uprising of 1907, and then after the Second World War, when in 1956 it was handed over to the Ministry of the Interior. It became a sad and cruel part of the Romanian gulag. The barracks rooms were used as collective or maximum security cells.

This prison is the site where, on November 26-27, 1940, the Iron Guard authorities of the National Legionary State killed 64 political prisoners as revenge for the previous killing of their leader Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (see Jilava Massacre); it was also here that Ion Antonescu, dictator of Romania during World War II, was executed for war crimes in 1946 and where on 23 October 1971 the serial killer, Ion Rîmaru was executed by firing squad.

Many of the interwar historical, political and cultural personalities (Ion Antonescu, Corneliu Coposu, Mihai Antonescu, Vladimir Ghika or Radu Lecca) passed through here and some even met their end in the Valea Piersicilor (Valley of the Peach Trees), also known as Valea Plângerii (Valley of Weeping) execution field, near the fort. The last prisoners to be imprisoned here were those from the 1989 Revolution.

Currently, part of the former cells are set up as a commemorative museum, along with the yard, and other of the fort’s facilities.

The museum/fort/prison can be visited, but you can’t walk into it, as it’s currently inside the premises of the Jilava Prison, so we had to go there with an organized group, set up by a non-profit organization (AIRDU - Asociatia pentru istorie recenta si dezvoltare urbana). They also have a Facebook page dedicated to visits there, but it hasn’t been active in a while. I messaged them though, to see what’s the status and if they still do tours, as my trip there was back in March 2018.

Photography inside the fort premises was allowed, not in the current prison grounds though (don’t worry, you won’t have to get through the prison, a bus will take you from the prison gates up to the fort premises).

As someone said to me, it’s a “coolplicated” thing, but definitely it’s a good place to visit not only if you’re a history fan, but also because if we don’t know our past, we are going to be defenseless about our future.