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Originally posted by Easytiger
I think you'll find that the mood wasn't apathy, it was horror of going back to war. The First World War traumatised Europe, and the people in power knew that the next war would be far worse. England in particular tried everything it could to placate Germany, but when diplomacy failed they fought like hell. That's not apathy, that's years of political work followed by six years of hard fighting.
As for Russia, they were well aware that they would eventually have to fight Germany, but in 1939 they were in no shape to do so. They signed the Non-Aggression Pact in order to gain time. Read Deighton's Blood, Tears and Folly or Kagan's On The Origins of War. They will tell you all you need to know.
Since the Allies won the Second World War, I would be tempted to say that it DID work out for them. But you are right, it certainly didn't help six million Jews, and everything I have read suggests that there was a great deal of awareness in the West that the Holocaust was taking place, particularly from 1943 onwards.
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I think a better word would have been appeasment. Well they wern't apathetic they didn't care enough to act.