Peniche Fortress — the political prison

Work on the fortress began in 1557, to defend the harbour and the peninsula, and it often served as a prison: for liberals in 1824, for Boer prisoners of war in 1901.¹ In 1934 the Peniche Prisoners’ Depot was set up here, for opponents of the Estado Novo (“New State”), run directly by the political police; the prisoners were guarded by the GNR.¹⁷³ In 1945 the prison passed to the Ministry of Justice, but the PIDE was always kept informed. It was here that political prisoners served the sentences of major imprisonment passed by the Plenary Courts and the security measures.³

Punishments were served in the “redondo” (round cell) or the “segredo” (secret cell), damp, lightless cells in a corner of the fort, on the edge of the cliff: up to thirty days, on bread and water. In the 1950s, the regime turned the old fortress into a high-security prison. Three concrete blocks were built — C, opened in 1956, A and B — and the Peniche Fort Prison, with room for 159 prisoners, became fully operational in 1962. Visits now took place in a visiting room, through thick glass; the prisoners were locked up twenty hours a day and were not allowed to talk at meals.³

On 3 January 1960, at four in the afternoon, a car driven by the actor Rogério Paulo stopped in the square in front of the fort with its boot open: it was the signal for the escape. Out of the high-security wing of Block C came Álvaro Cunhal, Carlos Costa, Francisco Miguel, Francisco Martins Rodrigues, Guilherme Costa Carvalho, Jaime Serra, Joaquim Gomes, José Carlos, Pedro Soares and Rogério Carvalho, together with a GNR guard. The Aljube Museum remembers it with an illustration by Margarida Tengarrinha.⁴¹

Repression reached the families too. In December 1963, the prison governor stopped visits; dozens of relatives demonstrated by the walls, and six prisoners’ wives were arrested.³ In 1969, Conceição Matos married Domingos Abrantes here.⁶ Aida Magro, on parole, needed permission to leave Lisbon and visit her husband, José Magro, imprisoned once again in Peniche; in 1973 she wrote to Marcelo Caetano asking for his release.⁹

On 25 April 1974, the PIDE agents refused to leave the prison and only surrendered on the morning of the 26th. The local people gathered by the fortress, the MFA soldiers stepped in, and the prisoners decided that “they would all leave, or none of them would”: they were released in the early hours of the 27th.⁵ António de Spínola had wanted to deny freedom to those accused of “acts of violence”; the solidarity among the prisoners, the firmness of the lawyers and popular pressure forced an unconditional release.⁷

Former political police agents were held here until February 1976. Between 1977 and 1982, the fortress housed “retornados” (returnees) from the former colonies, in a Red Cross centre, and in 1984 the town council set up the Peniche Municipal Museum here, with a section devoted to the Resistance. On 27 April 2017, the Council of Ministers, meeting in the fortress, decided to create the National Museum of Resistance and Freedom here,¹ which opened on 27 April 2024, with the exhibition “Resistência e Liberdade” (Resistance and Freedom).¹⁰