Europe, 1940 to 1960

The war years from 1939 to 1945 meant great shortages of every kind, and the life of Europeans was subject to many restrictions. Between 1941 and 1945, children were killed in huge numbers throughout Europe during military operations and in concentration camps. Overall, 1.5 million Jewish children; children from Greece, Romania, Hungary, Albania, Bulgaria, Poland, Yugoslavia, France, and Germany; gypsy children; Slavic children; children who had the wrong nationality or religion or whose parents had the wrong political affiliations; or those who did not fit Hitler's concept of the Aryan race, died in the concentration camps of the Third Reich. Gypsy children and physically disabled children suffered pogroms and murder under the Nazis. Children took part in military conflicts through their activity in resistance movements in German- or Italian-occupied countries. Older children were occasionally used as informants or took part in sabotage actions. Others were told how to behave in case of an inspection of the home, remaining silent about illegal persons living in the house or apartment.

In Germany during the last period of the German defense in fall 1944 and spring 1945, many boys between the ages of 12 and 16 years were drafted as German troops on both the Eastern and Western fronts. During World War II, about 10,000 underage German boy soldiers were imprisoned in the largest Allied camp for child soldiers in France. Just before the end of World War II, about 70,000 German refugee children under the age of 15 were sent to Denmark, where they received inadequate medical care. It is estimated that in 1946, almost all refugee children under the age of 2, and in total about 7,000 refugee children, died in camps in Denmark of malnutrition and lack of medical care. Huge armies of orphans were left without parental care—left to the mercy of the state or relatives, or on the street.

The traumas and psychological scars resulting from a wartime childhood have been suffered by generations, and they were forced to grow up quickly, their childhood having been wrested from them by war—they were not able to have a normal education. When war becomes a part of everyday life, with its overt and covert violence, it cannot help but change children's lives and their concept of the world. Rationing, introduced early in the war, continued long after the war ended. World War II devastated many urban areas in Europe, and children in these areas began creating their own play spaces in bombed-out areas in their neighborhoods, using whatever materials and equipment could be found. Most children played with toys that had been handed down from older children or made at home.

The misuse of children for political and propaganda purposes was mainly linked to the 20th century and mass political parties and movements such as Nazism, Fascism, and Communism. Sports, culture, and other organizations for children and young people became tools in the hands of national political and religious movements and leaders (such as Benito Mussolini in Italy, Adolf Hitler in Germany, Francisco Franco in Spain, Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia, Enver Hoxha in Albania, Nico-lae Ceausescu in Romania, Todor Zhivkov in Bulgaria, and Josip Visarjonovi Stalin in Russia). Political leaders in European countries were represented as spiritual fathers, teachers, and protectors of all children in their countries.

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