What is the meaning of a shared past?

Answer 1

A "shared past" implies that a group or culture shares a certain history of a place, event, time, etc. For example, there are 2 families that each have 5 children. The 5 children in each family has a shared past with their own siblings. But all 10 children from the 2 families do NOT collectively have a shared past between the two families. Using a different example: People born in a certain decade have SOME shared past or shared history as a whole group. For example, people in grade school in the 1960s remember the then very RARE event of watching TV in the classroom--when President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed. Our country shares that history too, but people born between 1964 to present only "share" this fact of history through learning about the facts--not from being part of the event. Survivors of the Holocaust have a shared past, but we only learn about their experiences through their oral histories. Even though there are generations of Jews since the Holocaust, they do not directly share in the same "shared past" as the survivors. As an even closer to now example: A graduating class from a certain school has a shared past-- same school, same class, same graduation ceremony. All high school students share a history of graduating from different schools, in different years, but only students from the same school, same class, same graduation ceremony have a shared past.