The phrase that stuck out to me was "one swarthy Jew". As a Jewish person, this set my teeth on edge. Perhaps he doesn't like the way you have exotisized his past to make him sound like something alien?
I have met people who live in places with few or no Jewish people who harbor some odd ideas about what "Jewish" means. Many of them think that they see only positives in the word, but then discuss Jewish people like something very unusual indeed. I'm not terribly unusual.
I'm an ordinary public school teacher living in NYC, raising 2 kids. I'm Jewish on both sides, but my parents come from very different places. That doesn't make me exotic.
Your daughter's boyfriend isn't exotic, either.
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.