Peniche Fado

During a recent trip to Portugal I took the chance to visit the fortress of Peniche, situated on the rocky coast in the homonymous village, approximately one hundred kilometres north of Lisbon.

The entrance of the fortress

The fort entrance

The imposing fortress was built between the sixteenth and the early seventeenth centuries as part of a system of coastal defense against foreign invaders and maintained its military function until 1897. Since then, its penal function emerged: it was used as a shelter to Boer refugees transported from the Portuguese colony of Mozambique on the eve of the British seize of South Africa; it became a forced residence for the German and Austrian POWs during WWI; and was then turned into an infamous maximum security prison for political dissenters during the dictatorship of the Estado Novo (1934-1974).

An interesting exhibition focuses on this latest period. The perspective is explicitly political: a coherent story is told across multiple locations within the fortress that constitutes the site as a lieu de mémoire of the repression and resistance of the 2,487 political prisoners held during those decades. A placard just to the right side of the entrance of the castle serves the same purpose.

1414665449360

Most of the convicts were communist, with some socialists, anarchists and members of other anti-fascist organizations also being represented. The repressive mechanisms that led them to the fortress-prison are evocated in the first part of the exhibition, located in two relatively large rooms of what must have been the administrative wing of the prison. Besides providing basic information on the dictatorship and the antifascist movement in Portugal, sources are shown that point the role of special courts and various police and military corps, including the ubiquitous Policia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (PIDE, the secret political police).

@@

A PIDE inform on the prison regime in the Peniche fort

One document also sets the place of Fort Peniche in the broader network of punishment created by dictatorship Salazar and his successors, and alerts on the entanglements of imprisonment and overseas transportation. Out of a total of 1,417 political prisoners existing on 30 December 1937, 1,055 were held on various locations within Portugal (Peniche, Angra do Heroísmo, Porto, Lisbon and minor sites), while the rest were transported to Timor, Guinea, Mozambique and Cape Verde (the latter location referred to the so-called “Camp of the Slow Death” of Tarrafal, active between 1936 and 1954 and then again between 1961 and 1974 in order to host anti-colonial fighters).

@@

The document detailing the destinations of political prisoners on 30 December 1937

As we proceed into the fort, selected aspects of the prison regime are highlighted. The visit slots, with glasses dividing the prisoner from their relatives, are a powerful symbol of the inside-outside separation imposed by imprisonment, reinforced by pictures of visiting children and wives in the late 1960s and late 1970s hanging on the walls in a nearby room.

@@@

The visit slots (from inside)

The isolation cells testimony of the spatial differentiation within the fortress and its architectonic symbolism. They were placed in a separate block on the other side of a vast patio, exposed to the highest level of humidity as the building is located on the cliff face over the ocean and the seven cells doors are in the open air.

@@

An isolation cell

At some fifty meters distance from the isolation cells, behind an internal wall, the prison courtyard lies between the chapel and two three-stored buildings that hosted the cells.

Prison courtyard and one of the cell blocks

The prison courtyard and one of the cell blocks

The internal division of the punitive spaces reflects the changes introduced in 1956, when a shift occurred from imprisonment in collective cells, modelled on the previous army barracks, to a more articulated regime that featured 2-3 beds cells in the two lower wings and solitary confinement in the third floor. At present, the former are used for parallel exhibitions on local folklore and sea-related practices, while the latter are preserved and included in the prison exhibition.

@@

Prison wing on the third floor

Traces of resistance are superimposed to those of repression in literally all the locations of the exhibition, reinforcing the central political narrative of continuous conflict between two clear-cut forces. While this approach considerably over-simplifies the multifaceted relationships that went on in the prison, and flattens their chronological development, it does foreground multiple forms of prisoners agency: from the hand-made wooden games that broke the monotony of the time in custody, to “kites” (illegal correspondence), clandestine journals, protests and famous escapes. Of the latter, the one occurred in 3 January 1960 is certainly the most famous, not the least because it included the future Secretary general of the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), Álvaro Cunhal.

Poster commemorating the 1960 escape

Poster commemorating the escape of 3 January 1960

Attention is also paid to the broader networks of resistance that centred around the Peniche fortress: from the self-help associations founded by the prisoners’ relatives to political mobilization outside the walls of the prison, and numerous testimonies of international solidarity.

Unsurprisingly, the climax of the exhibition lies in the moment of the collective liberation of the political prisoners, that took place three days after the “Carnation Revolution” of 25 April 1974 that overthrew the dictatorship after forty years.

1414667833426

Distance, imprisonment, resistance,: these words repeatedly pop up in the exhibition.

The fado entitled Abandono, interpreted in 1962 by the “queen of fado”, Amália Rodriguez, immerged the listeners in a similar atmosphere:

Por teu livre pensamento / Foram-te longe encerrar / Tão longe que o meu lamento / Não te consegue alcançar… [For your free thinking / They imprisoned you far away / So far that my lament / Is unable to reach you]…

Soon forbidden by the dictatorship for its evident references to the prisoners in the infamous coastal fortress, it became popular as Fado de Peniche, and a symbol of resistance.

 

I invite you to listen to the Fado de Peniche while taking a short visual tour of the fortress:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-_7BqY7e-8

 

One part of the fort, and the ocean

One part of the fort, and the ocean

 

@@

The isolation block, seen from the administrative block. Right: part of the cell block.

One cell block, seen from the isolation block

One cell block, seen from the isolation block

 

@@

The other cell block, seen from the courtyard

 

The prison courtyard

The prison courtyard

 

Wall and cells

Wall and cells

 

Inside a cell

A cell

 

cellainterno bagno

Inside a cell

 

cella cunhal

Cunhal’s cell

 

Prison objects

Prison objects

 

The prisoner's perspective

The prisoner’s perspective

 

Bibliographical suggestions:

Fernando Miguel Bernardes, Uma Fortaleza da Resistência, Lisbon, Ediçôes Avánte, 1991.

J.M. Soarez Tavarez, O campo de concentração do Tarrafal (1936-1954). A origem e o quotidiano, Lisbon, 2007.

Share this page:

Share this page:

Christian De Vito

About Christian De Vito

I am research associate on the Carceral Archipelago project, focusing on convict circulation in the late-colonial and post-colonial Latin America. And I am honorary fellow at the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam). My current research interests include the social history of confinement and the relationships between "free" and "unfree" labour (with a special stress on convict labour). I am also very interested in theoretical and methodological issues, especially regarding the possibility to bring a micro-analytical perspective and a spatially-aware approach together in historical studies (“Micro spatial-history”). I have been doing research on the history of social movements, migrations, and the social history of psychiatry. I am member of the boards of the International Social History Association (ISHA) newsletter, the International Association “Strikes and Social Conflicts” (IASSC), and the Societá Italiana di Storia del Lavoro (SISLav). Moreover, I coordinate the working group on “Free and Unfree Labour” of the European Labour History Network (ELHN) and am co-chair of the Labour Network at the European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC). For further information on publications: https://leicester.academia.edu/ChristianGDeVito

View more posts by Christian De Vito

Subscribe to Christian De Vito's posts

6 responses to “Peniche Fado”

  1. Anja

    Hi. I have just visited the prison and I was wondering what the room with pillars under the courtyard was used for? There was no one to ask, and no information in English. Hope you can help!

  2. Kathaleen

    I’m impressed, I must say. Really rarely
    do I experience a website that’s both educative and entertaining, and I’d like to tell you,
    you have hit the nail on the head.

  3. Ramiro

    I discovered your blog site on google and examine a number of your early articles.
    Always keep up the good function. I simply extra
    up your RSS feed. Seeking forward to reading more from you later on!

  4. Dominations hack Ios

    I’m impressed, I must say. Truly rarely do I experience a website that’s
    both educative and interesting, and I want to let you know, you’ve struck the nail on the head.

  5. www.genhacks24.com

    You have a great website here! Do you want to produce some
    invite articles on my blog?

  6. Bryon

    Awesome blog post.Really looking forward to read more. Much obliged.

Leave a Reply

Network-wide options by YD - Freelance Wordpress Developer