I ask this question because I am studying the Pacific Theater of World War II and read that there were battles in New Guinea, but were limited to the Northern and Eastern Coasts. I am aware that New Guinea contains peoples that have traditionally been isolated from the rest of the world, but I may be making a generalization and please correct me if I am wrong. A more specific question I ask is, Is it possible that many peoples who lived in New Guinea's interior were not aware of the occurrence of World War II? Thanks and I hope I am not reposting, please let me know if I am. Also, Please feel free to post information concerning other groups who did not have any knowledge of World War II's existence. Source: Shi, David E. "MacArthur In New Guinea." America: A Narrative History. By George B. Tindall. 8th ed. Vol. 2. New York: Norton, 1984. 905+. Print.
Here's a story about a Soviet family who fled into Siberia in 1936 and had no contact with anyone else until a geological survey team stumbled across their home in 1978. They had no knowledge of anything that happened in that time, although when they saw that "the stars began to go quickly across the sky", they correctly inferred that satellites had been put up.
The article only briefly talks about WWII specifically, but it's a very interesting read