Duvenage, Pieter1999-06-111999-06-111999-06-11http://hdl.handle.net/10539/7767Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: The TRC; Commissioning the Past, 11-14 June, 1999This 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.HistoryHabermasHistorikerstreitSouth AfricaApartheidWorking Paper