Collective Amnesia and the Mediation of Painful Pasts: the representation of France in the Second World War

Museums and interpretation centres are one of the elements that contribute to the structuring of communal memories within societies. This article considers these processes through the specific study of the ways in which the collective memory of the Second World War in France has evolved. Emphasis is placed on an analysis of the representation of resistance in French museums and interpretation centres. An historical and spatial study of the development of these museums is also developed. This shows how the collective memory has been restructured in recent years as more and more people realise the need for a more ?honest? approach to the mediation of this difficult period in French history; a period that many would like to forget . . .