IS IT POSSIBLE TO FORGIVE AND FORGET? Where fraught national histories are concerned, do policies of remembrance and education work, or is it better to wipe the slate clean?

The article examines how different countries confront or avoid reckoning with painful historical events, focusing on Spain, Rwanda, South Africa, and Germany. Spain's "Pacto del Olvido" (Pact to Forget) after Franco's death prioritized political stability over addressing past atrocities, later replaced by laws promoting historical memory and reparations. Rwanda's government, led by the Rwanda Patriotic Front, enforces a selective, state-controlled memory of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, excluding recognition of other violence and limiting reconciliation. South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission offered amnesty in exchange for truth-telling to foster national healing, though economic inequalities continue to shape memory politics. Germany institutionalized remembrance through education and memorials as part of Vergangenheitsbewältigung ("coming to terms with the past"), yet recent far-right political gains challenge the durability of this collective memory.