This article focuses on the politics of memory and forgetting after Auschwitz and apartheid. In the
first two sections Habermas's critical contribution to the German Historikerstreit is discussed.
Important in this regard is the moral dimension of our relation to the past. In the next two sections
the emphasis shifts to South Africa and more specifically the work of the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (TRC). The article ends with a general discussion of the dilemma of historical "truth"
and representation in contemporary societies.
