O antigo Aljube, hoje Museu do Aljube – Resistência e Liberdade, na Rua de Augusto Rosa, em maio de 2017.Ardfern, CC BY-SA 4.0
Santa Maria Maior
Aljube Prison
Next to the cathedral, it was a political prison from 1928 to 1965 — the one with the isolation cells the prisoners called “curros” (isolation cells) or “gavetas” (drawers). Since 2015 it has been the Aljube Museum – Resistance and Freedom.
Today: Aljube Museum – Resistance and FreedomThere is a marker at the siteOn 2 walks
The name comes from the Arabic al-jubb — a dry well, a cistern, a dungeon. According to the museum, the building beside the cathedral dates back to Roman and Islamic times and was nearly always a prison: an ecclesiastical gaol, a women’s prison and, in the end, a political prison.1
In 1928, two years after the coup of 28 May, the Aljube began to take political prisoners — men only. In 1934 it came under the direct administration of the political police (the PVDE) and was used mainly for prisoners on remand, who waited there for the investigation of their case, their trial or their deportation. It was from here that many were taken for interrogation at the police headquarters on Rua António Maria Cardoso.2
From 1943, thirteen isolation cells were built on the second floor, the “curros”: about a metre wide, in permanent half-darkness, with a bunk that, once lowered, left the prisoner no room to move, and two doors — one barred and the other of wood with a spyhole. In the first months of incommunicado detention, which could last up to six, prisoners had no paper, books, newspapers or watch. There was also a punishment cell under the stairs, in the dark, on bread and water.3
Among many others, the painter José Dias Coelho (arrested in 1949, ten days incommunicado), Domingos Abrantes (months in the curros in 1959) and the communist leader Militão Ribeiro (arrested in 1942) passed through here. Several prisoners fell ill and died after going through the Aljube infirmary.4
Women arrested by the political police were not held here: they went to the Mónicas Prison, in Graça, and from 1938 to the North Redoubt of Caxias Fort.
In 1963, an Amnesty International report and the visit of the Briton Lord Russell of Liverpool drew international attention to conditions in the prison. It closed in August 1965, and the prisoners were moved to Caxias.2
The Aljube Museum – Resistance and Freedom opened on 25 April 2015. The second floor recalls isolation in the curros; the third, those who died at the hands of the repressive system. In 2021 the former visiting room hosted the exhibition “Women and Resistance – New Portuguese Letters and other struggles” (Mulheres e Resistência – Novas Cartas Portuguesas e outras lutas), which now travels as a touring exhibition.56
A documentary edited by Sofia Gomes for the exhibition “Women and Resistance – New Portuguese Letters and other struggles” (“Mulheres e Resistência – Novas Cartas Portuguesas e outras lutas”), with excerpts from the testimonies the Aljube Museum has been recording since 2015: sixteen women talk about resistance to the dictatorship and the struggle for women’s rights. This version has Portuguese Sign Language (LGP) interpretation; the version without LGP is on the same channel (XmUbNbnHgKg, 2022).
Original page Licença padrão do YouTube — embed permitido pelo canal oficial do Museu do Aljube
Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade, on YouTube. The player only connects to that site when you press “Watch”.
Conceição Matos and Domingos Abrantes tell together, in a testimony recorded by the museum on 7 October 2015, of life underground, imprisonment and torture. The museum’s keywords include the Aljube prison, Caxias, the PIDE interrogations and the escape from Caxias.
Original page Licença padrão do YouTube — embed permitido pelo canal oficial do Museu do Aljube
Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade, on YouTube. The player only connects to that site when you press “Watch”.
A recording of one of the guided tours of its exhibitions that the Aljube Museum runs every month: the one on 7 July 2018, led by Luís Farinha, with commentary by the former political prisoner Adelino Pereira da Silva.
Original page Licença padrão do YouTube — embed permitido pelo canal oficial do Museu do Aljube
Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade, on YouTube. The player only connects to that site when you press “Watch”.
A report by Lisbon City Council on the opening of the Aljube Museum, on 25 April 2015, in the premises of the former political prison. It includes the words of the mayor, Fernando Medina: “We must be aware of what freedom cost.”
Original page Licença padrão do YouTube — embed permitido pelo canal oficial da Câmara Municipal de Lisboa
Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, on YouTube. The player only connects to that site when you press “Watch”.
In other archives
These can only be viewed on each archive’s own website.
Today: Lisbon Cathedral (Church of Santa Maria Maior)
The conspirators of the “Revolta da Sé” (Cathedral Revolt) met in the cathedral cloisters: a coup by civilians and soldiers, mainly Catholic in inspiration, which was to be launched on the night of 11 to 12 March 1959 and died before it was born, because the government already knew about it.
Today: São Cristóvão Clinic, run by the Mutual Aid Association of Commercial Employees of Lisbon
A palace in Mouraria that has belonged since 1913 to the Mutual Aid Association of Commercial Employees of Lisbon. In May 1924 the First Feminist and Education Congress, the first in the country, was held in the association’s great hall.
The square of the ministries, the centre of power of the Estado Novo (“New State”). At dawn on 25 April 1974 Captain Salgueiro Maia’s column from Santarém occupied it; the forces sent against it went over one after another to the Movement’s side, and the ministers escaped through a wall knocked open with pickaxes.
Revolution
Notes on the sources3
The ticket price: the museum’s “Prices” page says €4 and its “How to get here” page says €3 (both consulted on 2 October 2026).
How long the building had been a women’s prison before 1928.
Whether there were women political prisoners in the Aljube after 1928 (the sources consulted only record women held for common crimes, before that date).
Do you know more, or do you have a document? Tell us.
Sources
1Sobre o Museu. Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade (EGEAC) — consulted on 2 October 2026
2Cadeia do Aljube. Comissão Comemorativa 50 Anos 25 de Abril — consulted on 2 October 2026
3Cárceres do império. Memória Comum – Memorial aos Presos e Perseguidos Políticos — consulted on 2 October 2026
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