When your brain stops working you stop existing. After you die your body decomposes. The atoms that once formed you existed for billions of years before they started forming you, they continue to exist for billions of years while forming things that are not you.
You did not exist before you were conceived and you will not exist after your death. We know from many well documented medical cases that damages to certain parts of the brain also damage the memories and the personality. The idea of an afterlife requires that the personality and memories stays intact even if the brain is completely destroyed.
That is why we are pretty certain that there is no afterlife.
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.