Addressing attempts to define a common European memory on the theme of the Holocaust, and transformations of the Cold War discourses on totalitarianism and democracy. The article conceptualizes the persistent forms and new constellations of alterity that reproduce an East—West divide. The article shows that cognitive debates about Europe hint at constantly shifting relations between various parts of Europe and between Europe and its neighbors. A relational conceptual vocabulary is proposed to describe the debates on Europe following 1989. Cleavages and (...) social distancing can be expressed in terms of different temporal locations (allochronism) which, when merged with a normative stance, can lead to a situation of heterochrony. (shrink)