World War II  

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"No poetry after Auschwitz"

The economic and political aftermath of World War I and the Great Depression in the 1930s led to the rise of fascism and nazism in Europe, and subsequently to World War II (1939–1945). This war also involved Asia and the Pacific, in the form of Japanese aggression against China and the United States. Civilians also suffered greatly in World War II, due to the aerial bombing of cities on both sides, and the German genocide of the Jews and others, known as the Holocaust. In 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed with nuclear weapons.

World War II (abbreviated WWII), or the Second World War, was a worldwide conflict which lasted from 1939 to 1945 fought between the Allied forces of the (British) Commonwealth, France, the United States, the Soviet Union, Canada, and China against the Axis Powers, including Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Holocaust

The Holocaust was the killing of approximately six million European Jews, as well as another six million others who were deemed "unworthy of life" (including the disabled and mentally ill, Soviet POWs, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Roma) as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist government in Germany led by Adolf Hitler.

Effects on culture

See 1940s subcultures

Discotheques in occupied Paris

"Discotheques originated in occupied Paris during the Second World War. The Nazis banned jazz and closed many of the dance clubs, breaking up jazz groups and driving fans into illicit cellars to listen to recorded music. One of these venues - on the rue Huchette - called itself La Discothèque." -- David Haslam

In film

• Una giornata particolare (1977) - Ettore Scola
• Open City (1945) - Roberto Rossellini

See also

• Aftermath of World War II