At the end of the independence war of Algiers (1954-1962), the winner Front de Libération Nationale issued a declaration in remembrance of the “million of martyrs fallen [“tombés”] for the independence.” Thus, they used the term “tombés” that had spread all over Europe, in its different languages, after the First (1914-1918) and Second World War (1939-1945). But this term, in the context of a civil war, arises a number of problems: after the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), memorials also used “caídos” for its victims, but referring only to the fallen on the side of the winners; how to correct this clear injustice for the sake of reconciliation in democratic Spain is still under discussion. After colonial wars, too, it is not easy to deal with those who fought for the empire, as is the case of the Algiers Muslims that choose the French side (the “harkis”), not to speak of the Algerian-born French (“pieds-noirs”). The last lesson may be that reconciliation involves considering much more casualties than the fallen soldiers on the right side. The paper explains the politics behind the remembrance of the fallen, with special reference to the Algerian case.