World War II definition. A war fought from 1939 to 1945 between the Axis powers — Germany, Italy, and Japan — and the Allies, including France and Britain, and later the Soviet Union and the United States.
What was appeasement?
Appeasement, the policy of making concessions to the dictatorial powers in order to avoid conflict, governed Anglo-French foreign policy during the 1930s. It became indelibly associated with Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.
Could the holocaust been prevented?
Had the great powers stopped Nazi Germany as late as June 1939, when Britain and France were negotiating with the Soviets for a military treaty against Germany, and because of jealousies and political considerations, they broke those negotiations off. And then the Germans made a neutrality agreement with the Soviet Russians, which enabled them to open World War II. So, the Holocaust could have been avoided before it happened. Once the Germans decided to murder the Jews -- which happened not in one go but in stages, in 1941 and early 1942 -- there was nothing America and Britain could have done to save the millions, nothing at all. American and Britain didn't have the military power in 1941, '42, or '43 to stop the German war machine and the police organs for murdering the Jews.