Anne Frank's Tree

After visiting the chestnut tree, the judge at the Amsterdam administrative court decided on Tuesday, Nov. 20 to temporarily rescind permission to cut it down. This was in response to a case brought by several groups who are against the felling of the so-called Anne Frank tree. However, the judge still has the possibility to change his decision.

The 27-ton chestnut tree stands in a private garden overlooked by the Achterhuis annex where the Frank family hid during World War Two.

Back on March 6, the city of Amsterdam granted the property owner permission to fell the tree in the interest of public safely. Tests undertaken by the city reveal that the chestnut, which is estimated to be between 150 and 170 years old, is diseased and several attempts to revive it have failed.

The tree's owner wants it destroyed because under Dutch law he is liable for any damage caused if it falls. Amsterdam authorities had planned to plant a tree genetically identical to the diseased chestnut in its place.

Tree symbol of life outside of hiding

Anne Frank wrote in her diary on February 23, 1944: "We both looked up to the blue sky, the horse chestnut whose bare branches glittered with droplets, the gulls and the other birds that seemed made of silver as they swooped by.

"All of this moved us so much that we could not speak."

The Anne Frank Foundation, which maintains the Achterhuis as a museum about Anne Frank and the persecution of the Jews, has adopted a neutral stance.

A spokesman for the foundation said that although it regrets that the tree has to be cut down, it understands that public safety comes first.

However, the Dutch Tree Foundation and several neighbors who are opposed to felling the chestnut are appealing the decision. They contest the authorities' claim that 72 percent of the tree is diseased, and therefore could blow over at any time, saying that their own tests show the tree could be rescued.

A so-called administration court, which settles conflicts between citizens and administrative authorities, is to hear both sides prior to the planned felling.

Death in a concentration camp

A total of eight Jews hid in the Achterhuis between 1942 and 1944 until they were betrayed in August 1944. The Germans subsequently deported them to concentration camps, where some were killed and others succumbed following starvation and illness.

Anne Frank, along with her sister Margot, died of typhus in Bergen Belsen concentration camp, in the North of Germany.

Otto Frank, Anne Frank's father, was the only survivor. After the war, Miep Gies, who provided the group with basic necessities while in hiding, gave him the diary his youngest daughter Anne had written during that period.

Following its publication in 1947, the diary of Anne Frank became one of the most famous documents recounting the Nazi persecution of the Jews during World War Two.