ABSTRACT
This chapter offers international comparisons of "coming to terms with the past." The historical dispute in Germany about this process provides little enlightenment about the processes of genocide, its end, democratization, and reparations in societies that killed, deported, incarcerated, harassed, or tortured victims. Societies may also practice politicide based on hegemony, xenophobia, retribution, repression, and revolutionary zeal. When such violence ends, democratization and retribution are required for coming to terms with the past in the present through trials, monetary settlements, memorials, and clear personal and political acts of international significance. These acts were more easily accomplished in the West than in the East, especially through repentant or sensitive religious and mass media observances. Taking this argument outside its Eurocentric focus to examine coming to terms with the past in Cambodia, for example, would be a valuable international research project that may help all of us "remember" more broadly to prevent the recurrence of genocide and the Holocaust.
