You may want to check out ezsprite.com it's a nice spritesheet package for unity it works it's similar to the the animation system in flixel or cocos2d .. it can be used to create a particle effect manually .. I'm not 100% on if you could get it to work with the particle emitters in unity .. if you want to do that your best bet is to probably define a material with a shader that adjusts the uvs as time passes and use that with the emitter.
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.