After Atrocity

How does a society move forward after atrocity? After war? Genocide? Linda Kinstler (a journalist for The Economist and a scholar at Harvard University) studies ‘oblivion’, a collective process of forgiveness and forgetting. A process of pardoning. Not to let people off the hook, but rather to acknowledge their guilt in a meaningful way. Because: ‘a pardon confirms the crime.’

How have acts of oblivion helped humankind move on since Roman times? What, for instance, was ‘forgotten’ in post-Nazi Germany? And is oblivion still possible in a digital age in which everything is documented?

Linda Kinstler made her debut in 2023 with her book Come to This Court and Cry, about the Nazi trials. She has also published in, among others, The Economist, The New York Times, and The Guardian.