Whose Memory Lives When the Last Survivor Dies

"The past is not dead," William Faulkner once said. "It's not even past." He might have added that public memories of the past are also the battlefields of the present. Last week, controversies erupted over how to remember two singular events in the history of this troubled century - the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in January 1945 and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. Auschwitz-Birkenau, built by the Germans near …

…place on their 50th anniversaries. One would think that after half a century the world would have resolved basic questions of fact. But perhaps it is precisely because 50 years have passed that the controversies have become so pitched. "Fiftieths, I think, intensify arguments over any form of remembrance," Dr. Linenthal said. "Fiftieths are the last time when you have massive groups of veterans or survivors who are able to put their imprint on the event."