The Ethical Motivation of Memory Work

In his Zürich Lectures from 1997 W.G. Sebald argued that there is a lacuna in German literature concerning the Allies’ firebombing of German civilians and German cities during WW2. According to Sebald, the German writers did not write about what they had been witnessing and thereby they failed to convey the traumatizing events into the memories of a whole generation. In cases where a group has experienced and participated in traumatizing events, the memory of these events might be distorted, misrepresented or not represented at all in the collective memory. I want to consider whether in such cases we can talk of collective amnesia, as it allows me to focus on some of the mechanisms at stakeincollective memory. Further, I will argue that what I call “memory work” involves an active commitment to self-under-standing also at a collective level. Once we understand the notion of memory work better, we can understand why and how it is ethically motivated. The notion of memory work will prove to be relevant beyond the study of collective memory itself; I will argue that memory work is a necessary condition for making a sincere and genuine public apology and thereby to propose a reconfiguration of the landscape of collective memory.