Anne Frank tree
Encyclopedia
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
that was featured in Anne Frank
Anne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
's The Diary of a Young Girl
The Diary of a Young Girl
The Diary of a Young Girl is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944 and Anne Frank ultimately died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen...
. Anne Frank described the tree from The Annexe
Anne Frank House
The Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is a museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank, who hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms at the rear of the building...
, the building where she and her family were hiding from the Nazis
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The tree was between 150 and 170 years old, and for the past several years it had been battling both a fungus
Fungus
A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...
and a moth
Moth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...
infestation. The Borough Amsterdam Centrum declared that the tree had to be cut down on 20 November 2007 due to the risk that it could otherwise fall down, but on 21 November 2007 a judge issued a temporary injunction stopping the removal. The Foundation and the neighbours developed an alternative plan to save the tree. The neighbours and supporters formed the Foundation Support Anne Frank Tree which carried out the suggested supporting construction and took over the maintenance of the tree.
On 23 August 2010, the tree was blown down
Windthrow
In forestry, windthrow refers to trees uprooted or broken by wind. Breakage of the tree bole instead of uprooting is sometimes called windsnap.- Causes :...
by high winds during a storm, breaking off approximately 1 metres (3.3 ft) above ground. It fell across a garden wall and damaged garden sheds but did not damage anything else.
Anne Frank
The tree is mentioned three times in Anne FrankAnne Frank
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
's diary The Diary of a Young Girl
The Diary of a Young Girl
The Diary of a Young Girl is a book of the writings from the Dutch language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944 and Anne Frank ultimately died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen...
. On 23 February 1944, she writes about the tree:
Otto Frank
Otto Frank
Otto Heinrich "Pim" Frank was a German-born businessman and the father of Anne Frank and Margot Frank...
, Anne's father, described his thoughts upon reading the diary for the first time in a 1968 speech. He described his surprise at learning of the tree's importance to Anne as follows:
Interactive project
The Anne Frank Tree is also the name of an interactive project started by the Anne Frank HouseAnne Frank House
The Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is a museum dedicated to Jewish wartime diarist Anne Frank, who hid from Nazi persecution with her family and four other people in hidden rooms at the rear of the building...
in 2006, when it was opened by Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...
. Visitors to the museum are able to leave their name and location on a "leaf" of the tree, showing their affinity with Anne Frank. Part of the intended audience of the on-line project are students of the more than 200 schools in the world named after Anne Frank.
Recent events
Ganoderma applanatum
Ganoderma applanatum is a bracket fungus with a cosmopolitan distribution.The spore bodies are up to 30-40 cm across, hard, woody-textured, and...
, also called "Artist's Conk" or "Artist's Bracket") which rotted the wood and undermined the tree's stability. Additionally, horse-chestnut leaf miner
Horse-chestnut leaf miner
The horse-chestnut leaf miner is a leaf-mining moth of the Gracillariidae family. The horse-chestnut leaf miner was first observed in Macedonia in 1984, and was described as a new species in 1986. Its larvae are leaf miners on the Common Horse-chestnut...
moth caterpillar
Caterpillar
Caterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...
s (Cameraria ohridella) ate the tree's leaves, causing them to turn brown prematurely and fall off.
On 26 May 2005, the tree's crown
Crown (botany)
The crown of a plant refers to the totality of the plant's aboveground parts, including stems, leaves, and reproductive structures. A plant canopy consists of one or more plant crowns growing in a given area....
was drastically trimmed after a six-month study by botanists concluded that this was the best way to ensure the tree's stability. However, the disease continued to thrive and a 2006 study estimated that 42% of the wood was rotten. Some botanists concluded that the tree's death was unavoidable and the owner of the property decided to ask for a permit to cut the tree down in order to eliminate the risk of the huge tree collapsing.
In September 2007, an appeals panel made two decisions: one upholding the right of the tree's owner to have it cut down any time in the next two years, and one granting a request by the country's Trees Institute to investigate the possibility of saving it. Property owner Henric Pomes of Keizersgracht 188, adjacent to the building that is now the Anne Frank Museum, agreed to wait for the institute's proposal, due before 1 Jan 2008.
On 2 October 2007 and later the Dutch Tree Foundation was involved in the discussions . on 15 November 2007 it claimed the tree was healthy enough to cause no danger, based upon second opinion analysis by Neville Fay (a famous English expert of ancient trees) and by Frits Gielissen (a Dutch expert from O.B.T.A. De Linde).
On 14 November 2007 a pulling test was banned, but four days later this assessment of the strength of the tree was conducted. Boom-KCB, an engineering firm specialized in trees, determined that the tree was "storm-proof", and able to sustain itself, eliminating the need for outside interference as it did not pose a danger for the public.
On 13 November 2007 the Borough Amsterdam-Centrum declared that it would cut down the tree on 21 November 2007. A court hearing involving the Tree Foundation was held the day before the scheduled removal.
On 21 November 2007 it was decided to stop the removal.
On 21 November 2007 the Borough and the Anne Frank Foundation held a press conference during which they repeated their claim that there existed an “acute danger”. They urged the Mayor of Amsterdam, Mr. Cohen, to proceed with emergency cutting.
On 17 December 2007, the working committee Support Anne Frank Tree presented its alternative plan to preserve the tree (the report has English abstracts & conclusions) which included a construction to prevent the trunk from breaking down. Some weeks later, tree experts from both sides presented a joint evaluation of the tree. Their judgment was that the tree had a life expectancy of at least 5–15 years. To ensure safety, the supporting construction should be built.
The supporting structure, finished in May 2008, was designed to make it possible for the tree to survive at least five more years.
Eleven saplings from the tree were distributed to various sites in the United States in 2009.
On 23 August 2010 the tree was blown over in a rain-and-gale storm, breaking off about a meter above the ground.
It fell across a garden wall and damaged garden sheds but did not damage anything else.
On 24 August 2010 it was reported that a small side shoot was growing out of the stump below where it broke, and it is hoped that it will grow into a new tree. There are plans to keep large pieces of the fallen trunk and its large branches. The fallen tree is estimated to weigh about 27 metric tons.
The fallen wood has now been removed.
External links
- Description with images
- Support Anne Frank Tree (Foundation that wanted to save the tree)
- Anne Frank Tree
- Dutch game initiative to save the Anne Frank Tree from being chopped down
- Anne Frank Trust UK Tree Planting Programme