02 Apr 2019
Notorious prison soon to reopen as museum of resistance
BY Andy Knaggs
Portugal’s new National Museum of Resistance and Freedom is set to open on 27 April 2019 – the 45th anniversary of the closure of the building where it is situated: the notorious Peniche political prison.
The 16th Century fortress at Peniche in Leiria, nestled among the rocks overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, about an hour to the north-west of Lisbon, was used to hold dissidents and opponents of Portugal’s Fascist regime between 1934 and 1974.
Now it will become the country’s first national centre dedicated to this turbulent past, with an important role in teaching younger generations that their freedoms did not come without cost. The inaugural exhibition at the museum will take place alongside the unveiling of a "memory wall" inscribed with the names of the 2,500 people who entered the prison during the Estado Novo regime of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.
The regeneration of the bleak structures has cost €3.4m (US$3.8m, £2.9m), with architect João Barros Matos of AR4 studio being given the task of designing the museum as a fitting tribute to the political prisoners and torture victims who inhabited the prison.
In 1960, Peniche was the setting for a remarkable escape, when ten inmates drugged a jailer and abseiled down the walls to waiting getaway cars.
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