Jilava Massacre

Date: November 26, 1940 • Location: Jilava, Romania

The Iron Guard killed 64 political detainees at a penitentiary near Bucharest and followed up with several high-profile assassinations, including that of former Romanian prime minister Nicolae Iorga.

The Iron Guard was a far-right, revolutionary, fascist paramilitary organization and political party active in the Kingdom of Romania during the interwar period and the Second World War. Founded in 1927 by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu as the Legion of the Archangel Michael or the Legionary Movement, the movement was strongly anti-democratic, anti-communist, and antisemitic, and its ideology inspired both political violence and forms of Christian terrorism. It differed from other European far-right movements of the period due to its spiritual basis, as the Iron Guard was deeply imbued with Romanian Orthodox Christian mysticism.