Gottfried returns to his ‘second home’
GERMAN MAN WAS FOSTERED BY A BALTINGLASS FAMILY AFTER WWII
A GERMAN man who was fostered by a Baltinglass family as part of Operation Shamrock in 1947 returned to the town he calls his ‘second home’ this week.
Gottfried Block was evacuated from his native Düsseldorf after in the aftermath of World War II in the operation coordinated by the Red Cross.
Now at the age of 77 he made the journey back to west Wicklow, accompanied by the son of the family who cared for him.
Gottfried was accompanied by Patrick Sheridan, whose parents Bernard and Maureen fostered him from Glencree at the age of eight.
‘I had spent six months in Glencree and then I was fostered by the Sheridan family in Baltinglass and I went to school there for two years. I have very happy memories of the town and the people and I consider it my second home,’ Gottfried said.
Once enrolled in the local primary school in the care of Master Barron, Gottfried had to learn English very quickly in order to fit in.
Gottfried has high praise for his former teacher and still treasures a book he gave him as a child, a copy of which he this week presented to his host Patrick.
Two years after he arrived, Gottfried returned home to his mother in Dusseldorf but he was faced with the challenge of learning his native German again which he had lost in the intervening years.
He visited the Sheridans again in 1951 and in 1963 took his mother on a visit to London where the family then lived.
‘I had forgotten some things over time but once I arrived in Baltinglass a lot came back to me. I lived on the Main Street and I remember it clearly. I was very happy to be able to visit and see the town once again.’
Gottfried also met with his former school pal Dick Conway, a retired Garda now living in Wexford.
He and Patrick toured Wicklow and Wexford and later this week will meet Patrick’s brother Bernard in the Shelbourne Hotel, the place where the Red Cross first met to commence Operation Shamrock.