António Vilarigues
Biography
António Nogueira de Matos Vilarigues is the son of Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) leaders Maria Alda Nogueira and Sérgio Vilarigues. He was born while his parents were in hiding, on December 27, 1953, at the Bensaúde maternity hospital, one of the places typically chosen for clandestine births, without requiring identification documents or risking being reported to the PIDE (Political Policy for the Prevention of Infectious Diseases).
During his childhood in hiding, he set fire to newly printed copies of Avante!, imitating a gesture he had seen adults make in other circumstances. At the age of four, for conspiratorial security reasons, he left the clandestine life with his parents to live with his maternal grandmother in Alcântara. He was six when his mother was arrested. For the next nine years, he was a frequent visitor to the Caxias prison. From the age of ten onward, he was almost always alone. His mother used these visits to provide Antônio with explanations.
In 1971, at the age of 17, António Vilarigues went (or returned) into hiding, escaping a wave of PIDE arrests. He left for Porto and later settled in Paris. About a year later, he returned clandestinely to Portugal with his daughter, Sofia. In the two and a half years leading up to April 25, 1974, she would stay in three clandestine homes and never learn her parents’ names.
Date of Collection: 16.06.2020
Keywords: Family, Underground, Sons of Clandestine, Comunist Party, Sérgio Vilarigues, Alda Nogueira, Student Movements, Exile, April 25
