responsibility of the Ministry of Public Works and Telecommunications, and the project was drawn up by Cottinelli Telmo, with the name "Penal Colony of Cape Verde". Cândido de Oliveira says that the true purpose of the construction was not publicized out of fear of Portuguese and international public opinion. According to the "Dossier do Tarrafal" from the Editorial "Avante!", most of the guards were members of the PSP connected to the PVDE and the Portuguese Legion. Objectives The "Tarrafal Penal Colony" was nicknamed by its prisoners as a concentration camp because it was analogous to the Nazi concentration camps, or "slow death camp", since its main objective was to physically and psychologically annihilate Portuguese and African opponents of the Salazar dictatorship, keeping them away from the rest of the world, in subhuman conditions of captivity, mistreatment and insalubrity. In the first phase, from 1936 to 1954, it was a prison for the opponents of Portugal's fascist regime. Historian Fernando Rosas considers Tarrafal the "peak of repression in Portugal" and the "most brutal form of repression that fascism found" against the resistance, being "a terrain where the struggle of the Portuguese antifascists is joined with the struggle of the anti-colonialists or the patriots of the national liberation movements". The Dictionary of Portuguese History (2000) describes it as an "arbitrary deposit of the regime's opponents", and the "quintessence of state terrorism under Salazar". The way Tarrafal functioned and its method of treating prisoners was similar to that of other concentration camps that existed at the time. On a daily basis, inmates were subjected to punishment, torture, forced labor, poor nutrition, and lack of medical care. Most of the detentions were arbitrary. The PVDE strongly modeled its camp regime after the Nazi concentration camps. Prisoners were subjected to brutal authority. Strict regulations were enforced and outside information was forbidden. The PVDE used physical and psychological violence against the prisoners, this included sleep deprivation, beatings, and humiliation. Men and women were tortured for information on their organizations and networks in Portugal. The most severe punishment was conducted in a concrete cell called the frigideira (English: "frying pan"). Inside this windowless 6m x3m building, daytime temperatures could reach up to 60° Celsius. Prisoners could be held inside these blocks for days, weeks, or months. When used elsewhere, being held in cells of this kind had resulted in extreme dehydration, heat exhaustion, and death First phase