Monumentos e Sítios

In this context, campo de Concentração do Tarrafal is engraved in the imagination of the Portuguese, Angolans, Guineans and Cabo Verdeans as the "campo da morte lenta" (slow death camp) or "death camp". During more than thirty years of operation, it was used to commit the most heinous crimes, leaving irreversible physical and psychological scars on those who dared to oppose the prevailing political and social order of the Estado Novo (New State), Salazarism. 

Due to its history and memory, the Campo de Concentração do Tarrafal was inscribed on Cabo Verde's indicative list for UNESCO by criteria III and VI.

The O Campo de Concentração do Tarrafal preserves its original features and is in a good state of conservation. After its deactivation, the complex operated as a military training center and since 2000 has housed the Museu de Resistência (Resistance Museum).

 The “campo da morte lenta” was classified as National Cultural Heritage by Resolution nº 33/2006, of August 14. In order to ensure its administration and management, the Curatorship of Campo de Concentração de Chão Bom, Tarrafal, was created through Resolution nº 64/2014, of August 12.

Due to its structural, historical, functional and symbolic elements, this “Campo de Concentração” is similar to other homonymous spaces built during the period of totalitarian regimes that proliferated across Europe (1933-1945), the most symptomatic being Auschwitz and Dauchau.

O Campo de Concentração, due to its above mentioned characteristics, fits in with Robben Island (South Africa), inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999.