The duty to remember a harm does not automatically include the right to make its survivor retell it.

Remembering something matters, and it does not entitle anyone to make a particular person relive it on request. The obligation to keep a harm in the collective memory can be met through records, through others, through the retelling of those who choose to tell. Turning a survivor into a resource for that memory asks them to pay for it repeatedly.

If you want to know someone’s story, offer rather than ask, and make it genuinely easy to decline. Say you would like to hear whatever they want to share, whenever, and then stop. And notice the difference between wanting to understand and wanting to be present at the telling.