The exhibition "Portuguese Forced Workers in the III Reich and the Famalicenses in the Nazi Concentration System", originally created by the Institute of Contemporary History (IHC) for the Centro Cultural de Belém in 2017, can be visited from July 18th until December 19th at Casa do Território, Parque da Devesa. It addresses the Portuguese who were subjected to forced labour during the concentration system of the III Reich (1939-1945) and includes a section dedicated to the cityzens of Famalicão who went through the Nazi system during this period.
The international research, carried out by a team from the IHC of the Universidade Nova of Lisbon - Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, about the Portuguese who were involved in the recruitment for forced labour and in the concentration camps of the III Reich, unveiled paths that lead to affirm that many Portuguese were not unscathed by the conflict, in spite of Portugal having assumed itself as a neutral country in the II World War. The materials on display are the result of research carried out by a team led by Fernando Rosas that, since 2014, has sought to study Portuguese victims of Nazism.
One of the cores of the exhibition will have a local component and will be dedicated to some famalicenses that the research revealed to have been direct victims of Nazism. Among the Portuguese workers identified in the course of the research, a remarkable number came from the county of Vila Nova de Famalicão and other counties of the north of the country. This guided a team of local researchers who worked, in close collaboration with the aforementioned research team, to clarify the social and economic context of the famalicense territory, the reasons and routes of emigration to France and to understand the involvement of famalicenses in the meshes of the Nazi concentration system.
The inauguration of the exhibition took place on July 17th, and was restricted to specific guests due to the pandemic situation. It has been open to the public in Casa do Território since July 18th, during the period of Monday to Thursday from 09h30 to 13h00 and 14h00 to 17h30, as well as on Sundays from 14h30 to 18h30.