"I WILL never forget standing at the harbour in Dublin and munching happily on the goodies in the Red Cross food parcels," says Dr Heidi Schwandt Boden. "It was 1947, I was five years old and had never seen anything resembling real food, never mind an orange. Every time I peel an orange now, I think of Ireland.

"I remember Mr O'Reilly - I called him Irish Daddy - giving my brother Hans Peter some money, but we didn't even know what it was, money meant nothing in Germany at that time. I watched as eight year old Hans Peter, thinking the money was a plaything, threw coin after coin into the sea.

"My earliest memory of the Ruhr district after the war was ruins, ruins and more ruins. My mother was skinny, like a skeleton. My father had ulcers on his head from starvation. We had no bandages so he used to wrap toilet paper around the wounds.

"They decided to send myself and my brother to Ireland because otherwise we would have starved. I got a special military permit from, the Allies which I am proud to say that I still have. We lived in Stillorgan in Dublin with the O'Reillys for 1 1/2 years.

"We moved to a different family then, and Hans Peter and I were separated. A few months later we were told we could go home. It was sad but we knew that our parents loved us and wanted us back. They met us at the train station and laughed at how fat we had become. The O'Reillys used to give us mountains of bread and butter. I can't eat butter to this day.

"For the past 20 years I have been working all over the world for the German and International Committee of the Red Cross. I don't think that this is totally because of my wonderful Irish experience but I know that subconsciously it had a profound influence on me. I am proud that our president is coming to thank the people of Ireland."