11.18.2006

One of the oldest chestnut trees in Amsterdam =(

This is sad ..

Amsterdam - A giant chestnut tree which Anne Frank gazed upon from her attic hideaway is so diseased it must be felled, Amsterdam council said on Tuesday.

The chestnut stands in a garden backing on to the secret annex where the Jewish teenager and her family hid from the Nazis between 1942 and 1944.

Almost half of the 150- to 170-year-old tree, frequently mentioned in Anne Frank's diary, has rotted, the council said.

Anne Frank began the diary before going into hiding in German-occupied Netherlands and it was published in 1947 by her father Otto Frank.

It has sold more than 30 million copies and been translated into more than 60 languages.

Anne and her family were discovered in August 1944 in the annex of a canal-side warehouse and sent to concentration camps.

Anne and her sister Margot died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945, just weeks before it was liberated.

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I never got to visit the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam except for just walking past it a few times. I would like to make that a point to visit next time I'm there.