Women of the resistance
Helena Cabeçadas
- Born
- 1947, Lisbon
Watched by the PIDE from the age of 12, she was active in the secondary-school students’ association movement. Arrested in 1965 and expelled from every school in the country, she went into exile alone, in Belgium, at 17.
She was born in Lisbon in 1947, the great-niece of Admiral Mendes Cabeçadas and the daughter of an anti-Salazar Catholic. She had been watched by the PIDE since the age of 12. At 14 she followed the 1962 academic crisis, and in the 1962–1963 school year she joined the Pro-Association Committee of the secondary schools (liceus) and the PCP.1
She was arrested in 1965: questioned by the rector of the University, sent to the Civil Government building and held in Caxias. She was prevented from finishing her last year of secondary school and was expelled from every school in the country.1
Forced into exile, she left alone for Belgium at 17 and lived there for ten years. She remained committed to the anti-fascist struggle, worked with Portuguese emigrants and graduated in Social Sciences (Anthropology) from the Free University of Brussels. In 1968 she was in Paris, where she lived through May ’68; that year she broke with the PCP. Her exile ended with 25 April.1
From the archives
Helena Cabeçadas tells the Aljube Museum about the student association movement in the secondary schools (liceus), the academic crisis of 1962, which she lived through at 14, and her arrest in 1965, when she was taken to the Civil Government building and to Caxias. Expelled from every school in the country, she left alone for exile in Belgium at 17.
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Places
They crossed paths with her
Aida Magro
1918–2011
A chemical engineer and underground PCP activist, she was in charge of the Eastern Zone of the Lisbon Local Committee, “the most important working-class zone of the capital”. Arrested by the PIDE in 1957, she was, in Caxias, one of the authors of the letters of the Caxias Manifesto.
Albina Fernandes
1928–1970
A communist activist arrested in 1961 with her two small children, whom she kept with her in Caxias. She spent six years and seven months in prison and took her own life in 1970, her nervous system weakened by the years in jail.
Alda do Espírito Santo
1926–2010
A poet from São Tomé whose Lisbon home, on Rua Actor Vale, housed the Centre for African Studies from 1951. Arrested in 1965 and imprisoned in Caxias, she later wrote the words of the anthem of São Tomé and Príncipe.
António Tereso
A mechanic imprisoned in Caxias, he posed for months as a “rachado” (turncoat), at the PCP’s request, to prepare the escape of 4 December 1961, and it was with him at the wheel of Salazar’s armoured car that eight prisoners got out of the fort.
Aurora Rodrigues
b. 1952
A law student, she witnessed the murder of Ribeiro Santos in 1972. Arrested in 1973, she was one of the women students most savagely tortured by the political police in Caxias, and she never talked.
Cesina Bermudes
1908–2001
An obstetrician and pioneer of “painless childbirth” in Portugal. She campaigned for Norton de Matos in 1949, on the Central Committee of the National Democratic Women’s Movement, and for that she was imprisoned in Caxias and barred from teaching at the Faculty of Medicine.
Notes on the sources1
- Which secondary school she attended: the Aljube Museum’s record mentions the Liceu D. Filipa de Lencastre and the Liceu Rainha D. Leonor, without saying which.
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Sources
- 1Helena Cabeçadas. Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdade — consulted on 2 October 2026