At the age of 95, anti-fascist resistance and PCP activist Margarida Tengarrinha died today, admitted to Faro Hospital.
Originally from the upper bourgeoisie of Portimão – her father headed the local branch of the Bank of Portugal – she started taking part in protests against the dictatorship from her teenage years.
Teacher and visual artist, she studied at ESBAL (Escola Superior de Belas Artes). Due to her involvement in demonstrations in favor of Portugal’s withdrawal from NATO, she was expelled from school in 1952 and banned from studying and teaching.
That year he became a member of the PCP for life. His artistic skills would be used extensively by the PCP in forging documents. In 2018, he published an autobiographical book entitled “Memories of a Forger”.
It was in Belas Artes that she met the communist militant she would marry, José Dias Coelho, with whom she had two daughters, Teresa and Maria. In 1955, José and Margarida went underground. In 1961, Dias Coelho was murdered by PIDE, in a street in Alcântara – the event that José Afonso would evoke in “Death left the street”.
Afterwards, Margarida Tengarrinha went into exile in Moscow, where she worked directly with Álvaro Cunhal. She passed through Portugal in 1968, but did not return definitively until April 25. She joined the party’s Central Committee, was responsible for determining party policy on the important agrarian reform file, and was also elected as a deputy in two legislatures (1983 and 1985).
In the mid-1980s he returned to Portimão, where he taught at the Senior University.
Source: DN
