Foundation

The Tarrafal Concentration Camp was established in 1936 by Decree 26:539 of 23 April 1936, in the context of Estado Novo's reorganization of the prison system, with the purpose of incarcerating political and social prisoners.^[6][7] The location was chosen strategically, both because it was remote so that testimonies would not come to public attention, and because it had an unhealthy climate, with little drinkable water, and many mosquitoes in rainy seasons, which facilitated the appearance of diseases and from which many prisoners died.^[8][7] The construction was the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Works and Telecommunications, and the project was drawn up by Cottinelli Telmo, with the name "Penal Colony of Cape Verde".^[6][7][9] Cândido de Oliveira says that the true purpose of the construction was not publicized out of fear of Portuguese and international public opinion.^[6] According to the "Dossier do Tarrafal" from the Editorial "Avante!", most of the guards were members of the PSP connected to the PVDE and the Portuguese Legion.^[10]

Objectives

The "Tarrafal Penal Colony" was nicknamed by its prisoners as a concentration camp because it was analogous to the Nazi concentration camps, or "slow death camp", since its main objective was to physically and psychologically annihilate Portuguese and African opponents of the Salazar dictatorship, keeping them away from the rest of the world, in subhuman conditions of captivity, mistreatment and insalubrity.^[6][11] In the first phase, from 1936 to 1954, it was a prison for the opponents of Portugal's fascist regime.^[11] Historian Fernando Rosas considers Tarrafal the "peak of repression in Portugal" and the "most brutal form of repression that fascism found" against the resistance, being "a terrain where the struggle of the Portuguese antifascists is joined with the struggle of the anti-colonialists or the patriots of the national liberation movements".^[12] The Dictionary of Portuguese History (2000) describes it as an "arbitrary deposit of the regime's opponents", and the "quintessence of state terrorism under Salazar".^[13] The way Tarrafal functioned and its method of treating prisoners was similar to that of other concentration camps that existed at the time.^[14] On a daily basis, inmates were subjected to punishment, torture, forced labor, poor nutrition, and lack of medical care.^[14] Most of the detentions were arbitrary.^[15][14]

The PVDE strongly modeled its camp regime after the Nazi concentration camps.^[13] Prisoners were subjected to brutal authority. Strict regulations were enforced and outside information was forbidden. The PVDE used physical and psychological violence against the prisoners, this included sleep deprivation, beatings, and humiliation. Men and women were tortured for information on their organizations and networks in Portugal. The most severe punishment was conducted in a concrete cell called the "Frigideira" (English: "frying pan"). Inside this windowless 6m x3m building, daytime temperatures could reach up to 60 °C. Prisoners could be held inside these blocks for days, weeks, or months. When used elsewhere, being held in cells of this kind had resulted in extreme dehydration, heat exhaustion, and death

First phase

The first phase lasted from 1936 to 1954.^[11] On 29 October 1936, the first 157 Portuguese political prisoners arrived from Lisbon, antifascists, 37 of them being strikers participating in the strike of 18 January 1934, in Marinha Grande, and some participants in the Sailors' Revolt of 1936, organized by the Revolutionary Organization of the Navy, linked to the Portuguese Communist Party.^[8][11][16] In the beginning, the facilities were simple canvas tents with the capacity to house twelve prisoners, without any conditions, and the camp was circumscribed by barbed wire and a four-meter deep ditch.^[8] There was no electricity, ventilation or wind/rain protection.^[13] According to the prisoners, due to the unpredictably rainy weather of the location, sometimes the tents would flood and rot.^[13] The wooden buildings were reserved for the secretariat and the warehouse.^[11][17] This was done concurrently with the construction of the sheds.^[11] Electricity, air renewal, and protection against the natural elements, especially the sun – which is "unbearable due to the country's climatic conditions" – were non-existent.^[18] According to Cândido de Oliveira, the barbed wire barred any direct contact with the outside, although it still allowed visual contact.^[8] Manuel Franscico Rodrigues affirms that the construction of slopes benefited the guards, restricted space, and increased the psychological torture on the prisoners.^[8] The only stone building was the kitchen, which was partially built.^[8] Manuel dos Reis, director of the camp for several years, would receive the political prisoners saying "Whoever comes to Tarrafal comes to die!".^[15]

According to the Commission of the Black Book on the Fascist Regime, the prison records of some prisoners sent to Tarrafal have not been found, saying that on examining the existing records, "it soon appears that many of them were not even tried and that others, despite having been sentenced, were not sentenced to imprisonment".^[15] In 1944, of the 226 prisoners imprisoned there, 72 had not been tried and 55 had already exceeded their sentences.^[15]

The first two years in prison were divided into two phases: in the first, called the "wild brigade", the prisoners were subjected to forced labor for 45 days, under extremely high temperatures, to build the walls of the concentration camp, the road, among others.^[19] The second, called the "acute period", which began in 1937, was when the first diseases began to appear – such as malaria, bilious and other infectious diseases – and during this period seven prisoners died.^[19] In 1937 the first doctor arrived, but, not having any medicine to cure the prisoners, limited himself to just writing death certificates.^[19] Today, on the Museum of the Resistance, there's a quote of his: "I am not here to cure, but to sign death certificates".^[19]

In the concentration camp of Tarrafal, there were several first-line communist leaders and cadres, subjected to various types of torture, since its establishment in 1936.^[20] Due to the large number of communists that came to the camp, the Communist Prison Organization of Tarrafal (OCTP) was quickly created.^[20] Here, the prisoners intended to maintain political debate, doctrinal training, analyze and systematize their own recent historical experience, be it the political situation or party line.^[20] However, they were faced with several difficulties, namely the lack of paper and pencils.^[20] Sometimes the isolation was so great that any information about what was going on in the world was seized upon, even scraps of paper lost on the floor.^[20] Most of the time, the newspaper had been used as toilet paper, which earned the name among the inmates of "shit radio", and was vividly used as a source of information.^[20]

After 6 years imprisoned in Tarrafal, in 1942 the leader of the Portuguese Communist Party — Bento Gonçalves — died, along with 4 other militants.^[21]

In January 1954 it was closed due to the gain of the influence of anti-fascist forces and the defeat of Nazi-fascism in World War II.^[17][22]

Second phase

On 14 April 1961, the camp was reopened as a work camp by the Ministry of Overseas Territories, labeled "Chão Bom Work Camp".^[22][17] This phase coincided with the construction of the first stone pavilions and the reconfiguration of the protections to fortress-like protections.^[17] Its purpose was to imprison militants of the national liberation war from the Portuguese Colonial War in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, isolating and torturing them.^[17][26] On 17 July 1961, it was expanded, in 1962 new buildings were constructed, and in 1967 a wall was built to increase security.^[17] According to Pedro Martins, then a Cape Verdean political prisoner, the Concentration Camp was "a place planned, designed, and built to make people suffer".^[14] According to him, the place where the Cape Verdeans were detained was so small that they were accommodated "like canned sardines".^[14] Regarding food, he says that "[c]achupa with a few traces of tuna was served to us daily," with minimal variation, and that when they refused to eat spoiled fish "that even dogs would not be able to eat", their meals were cut off.^[14] Luandino Vieira was one of the most prominent figures to be in Tarrafal during this phase, being imprisoned from 1964 to 1972.^[13] In 1965, the Portuguese Writers Society awarded him a prize, which resulted in the vandalization of its headquarters and its illegalization.^[13]

In total, about 230 African anti-colonialists were present in Tarrafal, including 106 Angolans, 100 Guineans, and 20 Cape Verdeans, with one Angolan and two Guineans dying from illness and mistreatment.^[27]

Closure

Following the revolution of 25 April 1974 and the end of the dictatorship of the Estado Novo, the camp was definitively closed on 1 May 1974.^[26][29] Angolan Joel Pessoa refers to this event stating that "[the] Tarrafal was a prison for life. If it wasn't for the 25th of April we would all die there".^[14]

Between 1975 and 1985, it served as a recruitment center and military barracks but was abandoned after its closure.^[29] In 2009 it was transformed into the Museum of Resistance, and a project is currently underway that aims to apply for UNESCO's World Heritage List.^[26][29] It is the most visited museum in the country, with over 9,000 annual visits.^[27] The Resistance Museum is part of the preservation and musealization project of the former Concentration Camp of Tarrafal to give dignity to the site and the memories of the victims. The responsibility of its management and conservation was assigned to the Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (IIPC).^[30]

Surviving prisoners

• Edmundo Pedro: future politician imprisoned in the 1930s and 1940s^[31]
• Pedro dos Santos Soares, a Communist Party member, was sent twice to Tarrafal, from 1936 to 1940 and from 1943 to 1946. He wrote a book about his experiences there, called Tarrafal: Campo da Morte Lenta, (Tarrafal: Camp of the Slow Death), which was published by the Communist Party clandestinely and anonymously in 1947.^[32]