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Drawing on examples from studies of the Second World War and from the recent history of post-Communist societies, this article attempts to discern how far rules of access to public archives may have been responsible for collective amnesia—or hyper-amnesia—and the emergence of myths and legends. What is certain is that without access to the archives of the Third Reich, Raul Hilberg would never have been able to undertake his monumental, pioneering work on the destruction of Europe’s Jews. And yet, there are areas, especially where collective behavior is concerned, that cannot be fathomed through archives—short of having access to the extraordinary material represented by political police archives such as the Stasi files. However, public use of such archives can raise problems and generate conflicts over memory. Because they embody such a weight of issues, conflicts over memory cannot be resolved merely by pulling out evidence from an archive, but withholding such records most certainly fosters the emergence of mythical narratives and “national epics.”