Why this site?

In 1970 I was 15 years old and Pilots’ biographies from the Second World War had become my favourite reading. Pierre Clostermann's "Le grand cirque" came first, then the histories of Douglas Bader, Robert Stanford Tuck, René Mouchotte and other Allied pilots followed. These writings pushed me to identify with the "others" - the "bandits" as the enemy were called, whom it seemed at that time impossible to empathise with...

In this context my reading of " the big hunting " of Heinz Knoke ! I noticed, to my pleasure, that the notion of " friend or enemy " inevitably conveyed by war could not erase the universality of human feelings like fear, love, courage, duty and defence of the family.

In this year, 2000, I wanted to associate a woman and a man, a fighter and his victims, symbolic heroes all, with the peace they desired for all their forces: the construction of a free and democratic Europe.

I feared that by choosing a German pilot, whose aerial insignia were simultaneously associated with the terrible badges of Nazi propaganda, certain people might assume I wanted to immortalise this unhealthy ideology. If you have any doubt, I ask you to press the button below to reveal that I am in fact trying to immortalise the innocent victims of this war.
(Caution! Images on this page and these links depict intense human suffering.)

The Germans faced their history and their responsibilities. The history of Germany belongs to a common patrimony. In an hour when economic borders are falling it seemed to me important to show through this choice the will of the European peoples to unite, to be "known soldiers" who express the triumph of humanity despite the crimes of our past.

A tribute to " Lilo " so, to celebrate the force of life which is love and not to forget that for half the Europeans are Eurowomen!

Franck Ruffino