By Ricard Conesa, National University of Distance Education (UNED) and EUROM
Cover picture: Views of the National Museum Resistance and Freedom – Peniche Fortress from outside the grounds | R. Conesa
50 years later
On 27 April 2024, the doors of the new national museum were opened. The President of the Portuguese Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, presided over the official ceremony as part of the 50th-anniversary celebrations of the Carnation Revolution. Half a century after the prisoners were freed, the terrible Peniche Fortress has finally become an essential museum for understanding the longest dictatorship in Western Europe and celebrating the Portuguese people’s fight for freedom.
To the sound of Grândola, Vila Morena, the Armed Forces Movement (MFA) succeeded in ending Marcelo Caetano’s dictatorship on 25 April 1974. Citizens from all walks of life protested outside prisons and detention centres. In the early hours of the 27th, the prisoners of Peniche were released. This marked the beginning of the Ongoing Revolutionary Process (PREC), which would last until the military counter-coup of November 1975 and the adoption of the Constitution in April 1976. During that period, a wave of popular political participation would lead the last great revolutionary movement of the 20th century, capable of challenging the capitalist order in Western Europe. As historian Fernando Rosas explains, although the revolution ended in 1976, its political achievements and social advances would shape the country’s constitution and its later democratic system.
Fernando Rosas, in addition to being a renowned scholar of the dictatorship of António Oliveira Salazar (1926/1933–1968), is one of the many people who shares his testimony as a political prisoner in Peniche Fortress. But before this prison became a museum where the voices of regime opponents could be heard, a long time had to pass – years of citizen protests and mobilisation to prevent the site from disappearing altogether.
The Campaign
In September 2016, the Peniche Fortress lost its status as a protected historical monument, paving the way for its possible conversion into a private hotel resort. The recent transformation of the headquarters of the dictatorship’s political police (PIDE/DGS) on Rua António Maria Cardoso in Lisbon into a luxury condominium was still fresh in people’s minds. The immediate reaction of antifascist groups and former political prisoners, who gathered thousands of signatures and organised mass meetings to halt the process, was crucial. On 29 October of that year, more than 600 people gathered at the fortress to approve the ‘Call to the Government in Defence of Peniche Fortress as a Symbol of Repression and the Struggle Against Fascism’. Soon after, the government of António Costa reversed its decision, and the Ministry of Culture set up a commission to address the future of the site. On 27 April 2017, the Council of Ministers, meeting at the fortress, approved Resolution 73/2017, dedicated to the restoration of the fortress and the creation of a national museum. Throughout the process, the involvement and drive of associations such as the União de Resistentes Antifascistas Portugueses (Union of Portuguese Antifascist Resistance Fighters – URAP), which includes many former Peniche political prisoners, was essential.
In September 2017, shortly before the start of the restoration work, the monument Homenaje a los Presos Políticos en la Fortaleza de Peniche (‘Tribute to Political Prisoners at Peniche Fortress’), created by sculptor José Aurélio, was inaugurated at the initiative of the Peniche Municipal Council and URAP. From then on, the various construction phases, public tenders, and museological and architectural projects to enhance the fortress would take place. In the April 2019 commemorations, the first phase of the National Museum of Resistance and Freedom was inaugurated, but the site, with its various visitable spaces, memorial sites, and exhibitions, would not be completed and officially opened until April 2024.
The Place
Although the Peniche Fortress began construction in 1572, it was not completed until 1645, shortly after Portugal’s independence was restored. The military outpost of Peniche, with its roles of coastal control and surveillance, shaped the lives of its inhabitants. The various phases of the site and its impressive architectural features are explained in the former chapel. But before reaching this, as we enter the fortress, we encounter the memorial dedicated to the political prisoners incarcerated in Peniche between 1934 and 1974, displaying each of the 2,626 names of documented prisoners so far. We also pass by the Parlatório (the Parlatory), built in 1968, the preserved building where prisoners could receive visits from family and friends, always under surveillance and preventing any physical contact. Another restored building is O Segredo (the Secret), the unique round fort where the punishment cells were located. These were small, dark, and unventilated cells where prisoners were kept in isolation at the mercy of their guards.
The goal of the museum, as described by its director, Aida Rechena, is: “Positioning itself as a museum of memory and human rights, it aims to be a source of knowledge, research, pluralistic reflection, appreciation, defence, and promotion of universal values such as freedom and equality”. To achieve this, it has facilities that excellently combine modern museology with the monumental heritage of the site, a comprehensive and detailed exhibition on the dictatorship and the struggle for freedom in Portugal, and various spaces spread throughout the spectacular fortress that looms over the Atlantic Ocean. The museum offers educational services, a bookshop, a programme for collecting testimonies, temporary exhibitions, and a full cultural programme. And although at first glance it might seem that the grandeur of the fortress could overshadow what is displayed inside, the content matches the setting, especially with its excellent permanent exhibition Resistência e Liberdade (‘Resistance and Freedom’).
The exhibition draws from the latest knowledge of the different aspects surrounding the dictatorial period in Portugal, explaining through a rich museography (audiovisuals, projections, maps, documents, photographs, objects, cell reconstructions, etc.) its various episodes: the construction of the Estado Novo (the Portuguese variant of European fascism); the formation of its police and repressive system; its prison network; the (spectacular) escapes that took place in Peniche; colonialism and the Colonial War; the Resistance and opposition movements; life in hiding; and the liberation. Throughout the exhibition, visitors encounter a narrative that moves from personal testimonies to international contexts, weaving together a story that ranges from the everyday to major political themes, all addressed with meticulous detail. To conclude, visitors can also see the Memorial aos que deram a Vida pela Liberdade (Memorial to Those Who Gave Their Lives for Freedom), which records the names of those who died due to torture and prison conditions, those killed in the streets, fields, and cities, those deported to the Portuguese colonies, or those murdered in the Tarrafal concentration camp. However, as noted, not all the names have been recorded yet, as hundreds of victims of repression from military and popular uprisings, those deported and killed in colonial concentration camps, those who died from illnesses caused by torture and prison conditions, and those who remain anonymous are still to be identified. This work continues.
Along with the Aljube Museum – Resistance and Freedom, opened in 2015 in a former building that served as a detention centre for the PIDE/DGS in Lisbon, the Museu Nacional Resistência e Liberdade – Peniche Fortress stands today as an essential place of memory to understand Portugal’s dictatorial past and to honour the struggle of its people for freedom.
More information at: museunacionalresistencialiberdade-peniche.gov.pt