Hiding from the Nazis in a cramped Amsterdam apartment, Anne Frank often gazed at a majestic chestnut tree visible through an attic skylight - her only window to the outside world - and dreamed of freedom.
Now a group of tree conservationists and local activists are fighting a last-ditch effort to prevent the badly diseased tree from being cut down, saying it is a living link to the memory of the teenage diarist, who died in a concentration camp aged 15.
"It's a monument to the spirit of what Anne Frank wrote, hope and light, which she did not have," said Sylvio Mutal, a neighbor whose study overlooks the courtyard where the tree is located.
Mutal, a former consultant to the UN on preservation of monuments, called a decision by the City of Amsterdam to fell the tree next week a "betrayal," after earlier promises to wait until January 1 to consider a salvage plan.
"I'm not doubting the tree is sick and may have to be cut off (down)," he said. "What I'm saying is I want a second opinion."
The ancient, massive tree suffers from a fungus that has caused more than half its trunk to rot. The city gave the order on Tuesday to have it cut down on November 21, citing an appraisal that said it was in acute danger of falling.
But opponents including the Netherlands' Trees Institute challenged that decision as over-hasty, and argued the tree was a living historical monument worthy of savior.
The Utrecht-based institute carried out an independent investigation of the tree on Wednesday and said it will file for an injunction to block the felling order.
Its investigation found that while much of the tree's trunk is sick, what remains healthy is strong enough to hold during a storm and the main supporting roots are healthy.
"This tree is of very great cultural and historical value, and ecological value," said Institute arborist Annemiek van Loon. "You can't just replace a 160-year-old tree."
A rescue plan would likely involve supports for the tree's trunk and limbs.
The tree stands behind the "secret annex" atop the canal-side warehouse where the Frank family hid during Nazi Germany's occupation of the Netherlands in World War II.
The Jewish teenager kept her diary while she remained indoors for 25 months until the family was arrested in August 1944. Her diary was preserved and later published and has now been read by millions of people. Anne Frank died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945.
"Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs," she wrote on February 23, 1944. "From my favorite 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, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind. ...
"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."
A city spokesman said it would be "irresponsible to let the tree stand" after the study.
"We've taken a lot of effort ourselves to preserve this tree," he said, referring to an effort to cleanse the surrounding soil in the 1990s, and trimming the tree's crown after it was designated a hazard in 2005, to reduce wind drag. What remains is estimated to weigh around 27 tons.
"We would have liked to have waited (for the salvage plan)," the official said. "But at a certain moment, reality comes knocking." He said he had been authorized to speak on behalf of Henric Pomes, the owner of Keizersgracht 188, adjacent to the building that is now the Anne Frank Museum. The tree is on Pomes' property and he would be liable for damages.
Source: China Daily/Agencies
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