[schroeding]

(Second-hand) Anecdata: My Grandpa was born in '39, was 6 when the war ended and lived very close to a big city / region that was bombed regularly by the Allies from '42-'45. He was old enough to remember this and the (light) fighting when the Americans arrived.

After the war, he and the local kids played with live guns that the German soldiers just threw away. They used a Flak (anti aircraft cannon) as a carousel, played with the shells of it and used the local bunkers to play "soldier", with some playing the Germans and some playing the Americans.

So I'm not sure whether or not spending the childhood in a war zone actually changes the perspective of children (to the better). It sure can later, when they become adults, though.

[bombcar]

Adults are often more traumatized by it than children are; for them it's just the new normal, and something to play with.

[zweifuss]

As a small child in Essen, my mother lived through the bombing nights of 44/45 and the also harsh post-war period. The trauma that people close to her can suddenly disappear (e.g. suicide, abandonment, sometimes result of canibalism) still shapes her behavior today.

[Pamar]

Did you know anything about role preferences (if any)?

I mean: would children prefer to be Allies (because they won) or Germans (because, well, they were Germans)...

[schroeding]

My grandpa prefered the Americans, because the local soldiers gave him (and the other kids) sometimes sweets or stuff like an orange (which he thought was a ball at first, being disappointed that it didn't bounce :D) and were generally very nice to them.

Some older kids only wanted to play as the Germans or Hungarians (at the end of the war, apparently some Hungarian troops were stationed in the local bunkers to fight off the Americans).

I don't know what the other kids in his age group prefered, though.