Abstract
In 1991 Luc Huyse and Steven Dhondt famously wrote that “Belgium is sick of its 1940s”. In this short sentence, they referred to the country’s complicated collective memories related to the Belgian wartime collaboration between 1940 and 1944. This article focusses on a discursive shift within these memories, in which the interpretation of the crime “collaboration” moved from a crime against the Belgian state, described in a patriotic and nation-centred vocabulary, towards a global crime against humanity, infused with the human rights discourse of the 1990s. It highlights the crucial interactions between collective memories and the various rhetorical frames of reference in society. This way, the discursive shift is approached through an exploration of the prominent national and international discourses.
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