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When we got to Buchenwald we were again decontaminated.
We were washed, disinfected, and had to change our clothes.
That’s when they took my shoes. I remember that if there was ever a moment
when I mourned for the separation from home, and from the normal life in which I had previously lived –
it was at that moment, when I had to hand in my shoes.
That was the last object which linked me to normal life.
I was sent to work at a small factory, where they were producing airplane wings.
They were building the wings to the Focke-Wulf 190, one of the most famous German fighter planes.
My friend and I worked together as a team, soldering the wings to the body of the plane.
While we were working on these wings, I began, well, not to dream, but to make plans.
I had to become the pilot of such an aircraft. And I also told this to anyone who was willing to listen –
of course they ridiculed me. But the more they made fun of me,
the more the thought became an obsession.
On the 12th of April, 1951, they pinned the Israeli Air force pilot’s wings to my chest.
This was exactly six years, to the day, after I had been liberated from Buchenwald.
The insignia carries the blue star of David, at the center of the wings.
And this blue star of David now replaced the yellow one,
which I had been forced to wear for some time as a badge of shame.
It is a feeling of pride, one mingled with some sorrow –
I had so wanted to show this to my father.