| Abstract | This article presents a conceptual framework for reviewing the implications of state-crafted atrocities for the creation and continuance of traumatic memories. Participating in atrocities, whether in warfare or in civil society involves a violation of norms and values that are necessarily embedded in the socialization process. A violation of the basic rules of civil society is necessarily accompanied by some degree of guilt. As collective traumas become embedded in the social heritage of any given group of people, a central dialectic consists of a desire to repress or deny what happened.
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