“Our horse chestnut is in full bloom, thickly covered with leaves and much more beautiful than last year,” wrote Anne Frank in her diary on Saturday, May 13, 1944.
The now famous tree could be seen from the window of the secret annex where Anne and her family went into hiding from the Nazis in World War II. That tree was a continuous reminder to Anne during those years of the changing seasons and provided hope for the new life that she would begin following her liberation.
In recent years, the chestnut tree has faced some pretty serious challenges – a deadly fungus and moth infestation – and just narrowly avoided being cut down in 2007. Some support structures have been built, allowing the tree to remain standing.
A few years ago, Anne Frank House (the museum that is housed in the very building that hid them in Amsterdam) began collecting chestnuts from the grand tree with the intention of allowing it’s offspring to continue to flourish and inspire hope in places all over the world, including Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial and Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas among others.
“As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow.” ~ Anne Frank, February 23, 1944
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