Is there such a thing as historical, cultural trauma?

It's a brave man or woman these days who would name national successes of the past because so often a past 'success' is built on the subjugation of some other person or nation!
I wish we could stop remembering WW2 but it was incredibly traumatic for those who went through it and for those tasked with reconstructing a devastated Europe hence the desire to remember.
"Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it".
The trouble is there are many pasts and many peoples and the Earth gets more crowded by the day.

I did wonder if one of the reasons other countries are more committed to the EU is because they share a history of occupation. Only Spain and Portugal escaped and they had their own problems.

Yes, I'm sure that's right 'Trisher*, France and Germany always emphasise friendship and a desire not to be at war again. I think there is a more social democratic political outlook in the EU. When Macron says' We are one' in his speech to the French, I think to myself that I couldn't imagine Boris saying that or getting away with it!
Thanks for starting this thread, it's been fascinating.

I agree with you about the EU and the European countries that were invaded during WW2 trisher.
I'm interested in the possibility of ancestry syndrome as a psychological concept. Of course we are affected by our family history. My ancestors on dad's side were agricultural workers, who came to the north west to work in the mills/mines as agricultural work in the south became less available. We have Scottish and Irish ancestry, as do so many of us. Our verbal family history told us that people worked very hard, money was always tight, if there was enough you were to save for the inevitable rainy day.
All of that seems fairly uncontroversial, as being influential in our politics, belief systems. What is maybe a bit more open to debate is how much of our beliefs and psychological make up is inherited. There seems to be a growing body of evidence that trauma is included in our DNA.