Edwin Koot, of the Dutch Tree Foundation, was interviewed on that same episode of "As It Happens." Koot is trying to save the chestnut tree that grew outside Anne Frank's window in Amsterdam. The tree, which Anne wrote about extensively in her diary, represented freedom to her. She wrote:
"Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs. From my favourite 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. 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."
The tree is still there outside the Anne Frank Museum today but only a quarter of it is still actually alive. The city and the museum believes it's a danger to the secret annex itself and want to cut it down.
The Anne Frank Tree, a beautiful interactive monument where you can leave your own "leaf" on the "virtual" tree, has a webcam view of the actual tree and a lot of good information about its relevance and also about its diseased state.
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