11 
N°IV 2024   MuseoMag 
EXHIBITION 
on their own. They are spontaneous and unverifiable 
snippets, and yet they are an important contribu- 
tion to the study and understanding of the events 
they refer to. The most important contribution of this 
personal story lies not in its (missing) facts, but in 
what it tells us about what abuse of power looks like 
in concrete terms, what arbitrary persecutions in a 
war-torn or in a dictatorial post-war Angola meant in 
practice and how they shaped people’s lives. 
More importantly, we learn how this event impacted 
the father and the next generation(s): it was handed 
down and made a strong impression in the son’s mind. 
This post-memory is so vivid that, when confronted 
with the history of post-colonial Angola on the 
museum walls, he spontaneously shared it with his 
classmates, who apparently had never heard it be- 
fore. By sharing this family memory during the visit, 
he added to a different kind of knowledge about that 
place and time. The confessional nature of memories 
can contribute to a more concrete knowledge about 
what it feels like and how it is to live and be caught 
in the politics of war and dictatorship that arbitrarily 
persecutes and imprisons people. 
MY MEMORY INVITES YOUR MEMORY 
At the same time, the memories shared by one 
person prompt others to share their memories too. 
“I know my grandfather was a prisoner in a Gulag, 
but he never talked about it,” an adult confided, 
proving that memories of one injustice do not over- 
shadow or compete with other traumatic memories, 
but may even help to bring them back to life. Thus, 
the violence in Angola creates space for a violent 
memory of the Soviet Union to surface that still lives 
in a grandchild’s mind. 
Personal mnemonic accounts can challenge and 
even contradict an established narrative about 
historical events. Memories that relate to silenced, 
unacknowledged, even denied suffering can shed 
additional light on history. This is often the case with 
the memories of individuals belonging to a group, 
ethnicity or nation who were the perpetrators or at 
least certainly not victims. “We were born and lived 
all our lives in Africa. And then they kicked us out!” 
We often hear this or similar statements from the 
so-called returnees from Portugal’s African colonies. 
Individually, some may think they have done no 
harm, but they are still implicated in the exploitation 
and racism of the colonial project. They, too, have 
traumatic memories, as they had to leave their lives 
and possessions behind, fleeing the violence that