What does reconciliation in the field of memory mean? It is not an attempt to appear "above the conflict", to silence traumas and crimes, "to stop stirring up the past". The policy of silencing only postpones the conflict, which is bound to burst out eventually.
Reconciliation is not forgiveness for the past crimes. Reconciliation is a joint process of talking through what has happened and readiness to counter the recurrence of the crime. Moreover, reconciliation is possible only after a crime is recognised as a crime.
The fact that reconciliation and forgiveness are not identical becomes obvious when one thinks about who has the right to forgive. Only a person against whom the evil was committed can complete an act of forgiveness, as, for example,
Eva Kor did. In the same way as we do not carry personal responsibility for someone else's actions, we do not have authority to forgive for the crimes that have not been committed against us. For those who think about the past, there is a process of working through the past — work towards reconciliation in the context of the past.