Anne Frank's Tree Collapses in Storm: Pieces Sold Online

by Jordan Yerman | August 23, 2010 at 10:39 am

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Anne Frank's Favorite Tree Falls During Storm

The chestnut tree which Anne Frank wrote about several times in her diary has fallen over during a storm. The massive tree cheered up the young girl many times while she and her family hid from the Nazis in a hidden apartment above a factory on Prinsengracht.

The tree has since survived onslaughts from fungus and voracious insects, as well as an order to have it chopped down. Popular support for the tree has kept it standing, along with a steel support structure. Meanwhile, the tree has been cloned by horticulturalists.

Anne Frank Tree Pieces Sold Online

As branches and twigs from the Anne Frank tree are cleaned up, pieces of the tree are appearing for sale online. Authenticating these fragments would obviously not be easy for the average buyer, however, "certificates of authenticity" notwithstanding.

Museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostart said the tree's trunk snapped about one metre from the ground and it fell into neighbouring gardens, damaging several sheds. No one was hurt.

The Jewish teenager wrote about it several times in her diary, published as The Diary of Anne Frank. She would describe looking at it through an attic window of the apartment, concealed in her father's factory, where she and her family hid from the Germans for more than two years.