You could decorate the room in gender-neutral colours or colours such as beige, brown, yellow, red or blue. Keep it simple- don't overdo it. But you could make the lightig interesting such as put up some fairy lights in black and red up around the room.
Or place posters of the things the person likes in suble areas. Enjoy!
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.