[en] The paper reviews investigations of the effects of high energy irradiation on the properties of the 2-6 semiconductors CdS, CdSe, CdTe, ZnS, ZnSe and ZnTe. Most of the work has involved electron irradiation experiments aimed at establishing the displacement thresholds for each of the two constituent atoms by observing changes in the luminescence spectra. In all cases, except ZnTe, the energy required to displace the column 2 atom is higher than the energy required to displace the column 6 atom. The observed changes in luminescence consist of the introduction of new luminescence bands, usually in the impurity emission spectral region. (author)