Pierre Nora started the Lieux de mémoire-project in 1977 by using the old concept of lieux de mémoire with a new meaning and programmatic significance. However, Nora’s lieux de mémoire were extremely ideological, full of nationalism, loaded with value judgements. Most lieux de mémoire were invented or reworked to serve the present and future of the nation-state. Since the end of the twentieth century the lieux de mémoire projects have become politically highly sensitive and contested. In a certain way it was the consequence of the historiographical research of the lieux de mémoire which often resulted in the deconstruction of the nineteenth century construction of the lieux de mémoire of the new born nation. The sites of national memory are not innocent places but sites of memory-wars and battlefields of retroactive justice. The contested lieux de mémoire constitute vindications of past sufferings and historical claims for present compensation. Since the 1990s projects on national lieux de mémoire have been published in Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and other countries. My paper sums up the results of the latest lieux de mémoire studies, relying primarily upon French, Dutch and Hungarian examples.