Museu do Aljube

Near Lisbon Cathedral, the Aljube Museum — Resistance and Freedom occupies a building marked by a long prison history. The name Aljube itself comes from the Arabic al-jubb, associated with a dry well, cistern, dungeon or prison. According to the museum, the building dates back to the Roman and Islamic periods and was, over time, an ecclesiastical jail, a women’s prison and, between 1928 and 1965, a political prison. Created in 2015, the museum is dedicated to the memory of the struggle against the Portuguese dictatorship, which lasted from 1926 to 1974, and to resistance in the name of freedom and democracy. The long-term exhibition presents the history of the building, the regime’s mechanisms of repression and oppression, the opposition movements, the anti-colonial struggle and the path to 25 April 1974. On the lower floor, archaeological remains recall that this place of memory has roots far older than the dictatorship.