AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS — The diseased chestnut tree that comforted Anne Frank while she hid from the Nazis during World War II has been granted a reprieve.
The 150-year-old tree, diseased and rotting, was due to be chopped down, but after protests, an appeals panel and the property’s owner will allow experts to try to save it. The tree is familiar to millions of readers of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” It stands behind the “secret annex” where her family hid during the Nazi occupation and was just visible through the attic skylight. The Jewish teenager made several references to the tree in her diary about the hope it gave her.
Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945.
The Associated Press