As of this Wednesday, the former concentration camp of the Portuguese dictatorship in Tarrafal, Cape Verde, has a documentation center on the Internet (www.tarrafal-cdt.org).
The initiative comes as part of the Commemorative Commission’s evocation of the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April, which joined the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the release of Tarrafal’s political prisoners, which this Wednesday marks.
As part of the same program, the book “Tarrafal-Political and Social Prisoners” was also published and a new exhibition was installed in the former camp, now the Resistance Museum.
The commission designed the exhibition “Tarrafal, from repression to freedom”, to preserve the historical memory of the repression that affected almost 600 political prisoners from Portugal, Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.
Alfredo Caldeira, curator of the initiative, described the camp as “the most significant symbol of the prison system of the Portuguese dictatorship”.
The exhibition complements the exhibition spaces and materials that transformed the former prison into the Resistance Museum.
Thus, from today onwards, the space has three more museum spaces, using audiovisual and photographic materials and testimonies about different aspects of prison life in the two phases of the Camp.
The exhibition was enjoyed this Wednesday by the heads of state of Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and Portugal, during the special ceremony celebrating the freedom of political prisoners.
“The exhibition addresses essential issues such as violence, censorship, forced labor and punishments, as well as culture and education and the resistance of prisoners”, reads the presentation document of the Commemorative Commission for the 50th anniversary of the 25th of April.
