The growth of far-right movements, the rise of populism on the right and the left, and the crisis of liberal democracy in contemporary societies all over the world – against the backdrop of the tragic history of political violence and totalitarianism in the 20th century – contribute to making the study of collective memories of fascism, political violence, and dictatorship urgent as never before. Memory studies provide us an important research paradigm which cuts across numerous disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, taking in long-standing perspectives on the emergence of collective memories and, in particular, of the manifestations of political and cultural memory which are durable of time, as they are pegged to carriers of external symbols and representation. Political institutions and institutionalized cultural entities like museums, schools, etc. play a crucial role in the process. At the same time, in a world in which the real is constantly mediated by textual or visual representations, we register an increasing number of individual and social agents involved in the process of (re)constructing memories, each with their own agenda or goal. Their instruments are artefacts like the arts, architectural spaces, performances, literature, cinema and the like.