Collective Memories of Violence and Political Attitudes: Evidence from a World War II Frontline

The politicized nature of violence in armed conflicts can favor the persistence of group divisions into peacetime. Yet, many local violence dynamics may not correspond to the conflict cleavages, leaving the experiences of affected communities unrepresented and the politicization of memory ambiguous. We show that such "marginalized'' memories can be mobilized over time along new cleavages, following changes in the political environment. We study a case of indiscriminate violence against civilians by French-North African soldiers during the Italian campaign of World War II. Through a geo-targeted survey experiment, we document that the subjective understandings of the past perpetuated within families and communities correlate with political affiliation, and that their salience causally affects attitudes toward immigration. An analysis of post-war elections further shows that increases in a party's nationalist stance result in larger electoral gains in formerly victimized communities.