Memory is one of the most important ways history influences our world. The way in which we remember events of the past can shape our perceptions of present and future events. The historical manuscripts, artifacts, statues, and buildings that our collective history is based upon also influences our cultural identity. The destruction of the same aforementioned articles and structures would rob us of part of our identity. The Declaration of Independence of the United States has been copied and reproduced over and over again. It appears in textbooks, and is readily available online, so why do we take such care to preserve the original. Many in this nation have not nor will ever make the pilgrimage to Washington, D.C. in order to view the original. The loss of such a document would not endanger the nation of being reabsorbed into the British Empire any more than Canada or Australia would. So again I ask: why is the original document so important to the people’s collective memory? Those who wrote the document are long since gone and buried, but we as citizens of the United States base our identity on the “inalienable rights” found within the document. We assert our claim on the God-given rights outlined in the document, including “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

Another, not so pleasant, example is Auschwitz Concentration Camp, a site that depicts one of the most heinous acts and depressing periods of human history. Whether complicit or not, the preservation of Auschwitz is an embarrassing reminder for the German people of one of the darkest periods of their history. They pass this memory on to their children, and their children’s children. So why preserve such a site, when it casts such a black shadow on the people? Why not destroy it and erase the embarrassing mistake from memory?

During the Roman period, the Senate or emperor could order the removal of a public official from memory for the good of the empire. Modern historians call this damnatio memoriae, which literally means “condemnation of memory.” This included the total erasure of the person’s name from public documents and faces from statues and other visages. The Romans were not unique in wanting to destroy the embarrassing memory from their history. Every culture has tried to cover up or erase the painful and embarrassing events from their history in order to promote consensus and maintain national pride. This is unfortunate because we often learn most from our mistakes. The memory of mistakes like the Holocaust is paramount to future generations. We must realize that we cannot fix the mistakes of the past, but we can prevent them ever occurring again.

Vigilance against evil sometimes requires knowing what to guard against. Tyranny, mass murder, genocide, and a world at war came from Nazi Germany. The demand for equal rights and representation led to the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence. The memory of those time periods, passed down from generation to generation, can prevent the reoccurrence of such evils, but only if we don’t shrink from the pain and embarrassment and embrace our heritage whether good or bad. Fight against the destruction of history and memory or we may be doomed to repeat our greatest mistakes.