Museums

The Jewish Museum of Oporto reveals the four millennia of Jewish history in the world and about two millennia on the land that is now Portugal, to the present day. Valuable objects, documents and films are dedicated to the brightest era of the Jewish community of Oporto, the edict of King D. Manuel, the times of the Inquisition and the community’s return in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. In addition to the rooms of the museum with the centuries-old history of the community, the Museum has a room with the film awards won by the community, a room on modern antisemitism, a room dedicated to operation Yonathan (the Entebbe rescue operation), a room-wine cellar with kosher Port wine, a cinema and a plaque with the almost 1000 names of Oporto people persecuted for Judaizing heresies.

The Holocaust Museum of Oporto is the only one of its kind on the Iberian Peninsula. Its displays include the files of Jewish refugees who came through Oporto in 1940 on transit visas. The Museum depicts Jewish life in Portugal before, during and after the Holocaust, has a replica of a dormitory at Auschwitz and a memory room with the names of the victims of Nazism. Its principal focus is on education, encouraging visits by schoolchildren from all over the country and training teachers.

The Jewish Museum and the Holocaust Museum of Oporto have received over 150 thousand students from Portuguese schools in the last three years, that is, 15% of Portugal’s young population. Everything is done by the community with no support from either the Government or other public and private entities.

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