NETHERLANDS/FILE: Conservationists fight to save Anne Frank's tree from the chop

Campaigners have vowed to fight a council decision to cut down Anne Frank's chestnut tree for fear a storm could cause severe damage to surrounding homes and the Anne Frank museum itself. And one man says he has an answer: to sell a chestnut from the tree so it can live on somewhere else. Conservationists held an official news conference on Friday (November 16) to announce that they had filed an injunction the previous day to block the felling of Anne Frank's tree and that they got permission to simulate a storm to prove to the local council that it is safe. The decayed chestnut tree gave solace to Anne Frank as she hid from the Nazis in Amsterdam during World War II. The city council said it would cut it down next week, after last week's storm warnings have scared the owner of the tree and Anne Frank Foundation. They say the tree might fall on Anne Frank house. Plans to cut down the tree had been delayed due to appeals, but a recent investigation had shown that the risk the trunk could break was too great. The Dutch Tree Institute finally got permission on Friday to conduct their own investigation that will include storm simulation early next week, before the court hearing on Tuesday (November 20) and before the scheduled chopping down on Wednesday (November 21). Tourists visiting the museum said the tree was a powerful living memory of Anne Frank and that they would be sad to see it go. "It was on BBC news on TV this morning. I thought it was weird, because we're coming to visit today. Hopefully they'll save it," said Jane. "I think that's still taking away something of the whole point of the house and what kind of ordeal she went through and I think it all represents something, I don't think you can take anything away and plant something new, or even just take it away, because I think it distracts from the whole reason of the museum," said Steve. The Jewish teenager described gazing longingly at the tree in the diary she kept during her two years in hiding. Anne and her family hid in an annexe to a canal-side warehouse until they were betrayed and arrested in August 1944. The towering horse chestnut was one of the few examples of nature and normal life she could see. The Anne Frank House said that a graft from the original tree will be put back, however. But Charles, whose house gives onto the garden where the tree lives, has a better idea: to sell one of the chestnuts on e-bay so it can be planted and live on somewhere else. "I put a chestnut for sale on E-bay, so you can grow your own Anne Frank tree. Well, it's the last opportunity because next wednesday it may be cut down," said Charles. Up until now he has only got a 3 euro offer. Conservationists from the Netherlands Tree Institute don't want it uprooted at all. They say there is enough strength left in the tree for it to survive a storm. The council has also said 28 percent of the tree is healthy. They filed for an injunction on Thursday (November 15) to bloc the felling of the tree. And also won the right to simulate a storm to prove their point. "There is a conflict. They think it's dangerous, we think it's not. the only way to come with extra information is to do a storm test and thank god, owner just told us that we are allowed now to do that storm test and that's going to take place either on Monday or on Tuesday, so we have those results and can show them to the judge," said Edwin Koot, Project Leader at the Netherlands Tree Institute. The institute used the help of an architect to show what would happen in the event it did fall however. And they concluded that the museum was still safe. "If the tree falls, it is not falling direction Anne Frank building, it's the other side, we know which side, and that side we can fix," said Rob Hoogendijk, architect. Anne Frank's house stirs up many emotions and has been a living symbol of stealth and stamina for millions around the world. In 1961 it was partially rebuild and turned into a youth hostel. In was later properly restored and by 2005 it was used as a refuge for persecuted writers. The three-bedroom apartment was rented out by a local housing agency to the Amsterdam Foundation for Cities of Refuge, and every year the foundation invited a foreign writer threatened with censorship or persecution to live and work there. The first resident of the apartment at Merwedeplein in southern Amsterdam was Algerian novelist and poet El-Mahdi Acherchour. Anne Frank and her family lived in the house from 1933 to 1944. She died with her sister Margot in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, weeks before the liberation.

ITN Source | November 17, 2007

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