Finding aids to the past: bearing personal witness to traumatic public events

The past compels us for what it tells us about the present. It is no wonder, then, that nearly everyone with a voice claims territoriality for it - wide-ranging collectives like nation-states; large-scale interested groups bonded by ethnicity, class and race; professional communities driven by expertise, like historians, filmmakers or journalists. Each strives to colonize connections to the past as a way of lending credence, cohesion or even a simple perspective to life in the present.