The chestnut tree that gave Anne Frank comfort while her family was hiding for two years during the Holocaust has fallen in a storm. It was about 150 years old.
Efforts to save the large tree over the last few years extended its life as foundation supporters rushed to preserve it. Chestnuts from the tree have been propagated and planted at memorial centers throughout the world.
"Anne could see the chestnut tree from a window in the attic of the annex. She wrote about the tree in her diary, The Diary of a Young Girl, three times. On April 18, 1944, she wrote: “April is glorious, not too hot and not too cold, with occasional light showers. Our chestnut tree is in leaf, and here and there you can already see a few small blossoms.” On May 13, 1944, she wrote: “Our chestnut tree is in full bloom. It’s covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year.”
“Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs,” she wrote on Feb. 23, 1944. “From my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind. As long as this exists, I thought, and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy.”
This tree encourages us to think about the trees in our own lives which have comforted and inspired us. We have a chestnut tree whose blooms enhance the splendour of the season and provide a good canopy of shade during the heat of the summer.
