ABSTRACT
This part conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discusses three different situations— in Finland, South Africa and the former Yugoslavia— where there are divided communities and contested memories. It writes about “difficult heritage” for the Netherlands. In contrast to Ahonen, a divided community in the present is not the issue. Rather, it is how to deal with collective guilt around World War II and the Holocaust. The book provides a fascinating account of controversies over the 1963 Operation Coldstore in Singapore. Loh Kah Seng’s analysis of Operation Coldstore provides a third opportunity to test the utility of the history/memory matrix. The book also provides analyses of history education in schools around the world as being poised in different ways in various contexts, to address political, social and cultural divisions.
