1939–1945 CE · global war and Nazi genocide · Global · War
Axis aggression widened into a global war of invasion, occupation, resistance and mass civilian death. Within it, Nazi Germany and collaborators systematically murdered six million European Jews in the Holocaust and persecuted and murdered millions of other victims.
Atlas dossier · World WarsFree device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available
Why it matters
The war included Axis invasions, Allied campaigns, occupation, resistance, strategic bombing, famine and mass civilian displacement across several continents. Within that history, the Holocaust was Nazi Germany and its collaborators’ systematic persecution and murder of six million European Jews. Treating the genocide as merely one wartime atrocity would erase its distinct intent and machinery.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Introduction to the Holocaust ↗The Nazi regime also persecuted and murdered Roma and Sinti, disabled people, Polish and Soviet civilians and prisoners of war, political opponents, gay men and others under different policies. Naming them matters; merging all victims into the six-million figure does not. Liberation ended camps but did not restore murdered communities or immediately return displaced survivors home.
Imperial War Museums: Second World War collections ↗Silent pan-and-zoom motion derivative of the Second World War and Holocaust reconstruction; not archival footage.
Primary Atlas editorial reconstruction for Second World War and Holocaust.
World History in Pictures · Public site artwork. This record does not grant third-party republication rights.
How Atlas classifies this artwork →
Supporting Atlas reconstruction within the same Second World War and Holocaust editorial package; not an independent archival record.
World History in Pictures · Same editorial artwork package
How Atlas classifies this artwork →
Context crop from the same Second World War and Holocaust reconstruction; not an independent historical record.
World History in Pictures · Same editorial artwork package
How Atlas classifies this artwork →Interpretation note
This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.
Elsewhere in the world
1938–1945 CE · experimental fission, interpretation, chain reaction and atomic war · EuropeNuclear fission and the nuclear ageHahn and Strassmann’s 1938 experiments produced evidence of uranium fission; Meitner and Frisch supplied the physical interpretation and name. Chain-reaction research then led rapidly to a reactor and the Manhattan Project.
1931–1945 CE · Manchurian seizure, war in China and wider Pacific conflict · AsiaThe Asia-Pacific War and NanjingJapan seized Manchuria in 1931; full-scale war with China followed in 1937 and merged with the wider Pacific war after 1941. In late 1937 and early 1938, Japanese forces perpetrated mass killing, sexual violence, looting and terror against civilians and disarmed soldiers in Nanjing.
1947–1949 CE · partition proposal, civil war, statehood, regional war and displacement · Middle East1948 war, Palestinian displacement and the making of IsraelThe UN General Assembly recommended partition in 1947; civil war followed, Israel declared statehood as the British Mandate ended in May 1948, and neighbouring Arab states entered the war. More than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced or expelled in the Nakba.