In the aftermath of the Second World War, European societies, faced with the Cold War and modernization, began to think about how to face the brutal experiences of the past and how to teach them to the next generation. This lecture introduces the contributions of French scholar Pierre Nora and German scholar Aleida Assmann to the study of historical memory. Taking Nora’s “Les Lieux de mémoire” and Assmann’s “Geschichte im Gedächtnis” as examples, the lecture discusses how history is talked about, interpreted and consumed. It also touches on the discussion of identity politics in contemporary European societies, the resurgence of patriotic ideology, and the ways in which right-wing parties minimize the historical experience of the Holocaust.