Aside from the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was also profoundly marked by street protests — some of which led to vandalism — including demonstrations against controversial monuments that represent divided past heritage and painful memories. The phenomenon has gone global. Around the world, various activist groups have taken matters in their own hands, targeting particular public statues representing U.S. Confederate figures, Canadian political leaders and British colonialists. Today’s timing The recent public interest in memorials emerges at the very moment when long-established Western traditions are falling apart and people are looking for new representations of the past. For German historian Jörn Rüsen, history offers a moral and cultural compass to orient people’s life by combining a vision of past, present and expected future. Surveys such as