For Maurice Halbwach the two memories related by him experiencing the environmental conditions when he visited Algeria and when he visited the banker's family. The two scenarios reminded him of events in the past that he might have experienced, or he had read or been told about. Collective memory can be used to alter the historical memory of a person. If a person becomes too involved in some groups and they participate more often in its memory, they can alter their historical memory with the new information they come across, and they did not know of back then. These changing would mean that the memory the person had was not the full picture, or the group may be more connected with that part of the past events. Distortions or blanks may be present in a person's historical memory, because of this blanks the person will fill them in using his or her own imagination. The only way the person will discover that his or her memories are wrong is if there is another person with whom they share the same memory. The other person can give out a different and more realistic recount of the events. This would make the former to alter their memory.

Agreeing or disagreeing with Maurice Halbwach's distinctions

The distinctions that Maurice Halbwach has made are true. This is because...

The trigger can be a picture, a smell, or a conversation with other people. This goes to show that historical memory and collective memory are related and collective memory can help one recover their past memories Ron, 2004.
There are also times that a historical memory can be altered, especially if one did not have all the facts. This would make the new discovery replace some of their historical memory, just as it would have happened with Halbwach's father. Had he started receiving new information or discoveries regarding his dead father. The new discoveries would have altered his remembrance of his father, because he was not alive anymore and his memories had started to fade away.

References

Green, a. (2004). Individual Remembering and 'Collective Memory': Theoretical Presuppositions and Contemporary Debates. Oral History, 32(2), 35-44.

Halbwachs, M., & Coser, L.A. (1992). Halbwachs/Coser: On Collective Memory. 1427 E. 60th Street Chicago, IL 60637: University of Chicago Press.

Ron, E. (2004). The Past in the Present: Culture and the Transmission of Memory. Acta Sociologica, 47(2), 159-169.