News of: Saturday, November 17 2007,
The hype about the Anne Frank tree continues. The 'Tree foundation', together with neighbours of the Anne Frank house, have decided to take the Amsterdam City Centre authorities to court about the cutting down of the tree.
The city intends to cut down the tree on Wednesday November 21, because of the danger that the tree may fall down in a storm. The tree weighs 27,000 kilo and is more dead than alive.
Neighbours, and the Tree foundation, claim that enough parts of the tree are still alive to keep it up for up to 30 years. Their plan is to support the tree in a metal structure, attached to the surrounding houses. They say the tree is a 'symbol against oppression', and the city should do everything to save it.
On Tuesday an Amsterdam court will pass judgement about the case. If the neighbours of the Anne Frank House win, they will get more time to investigate possibilities to save the tree. Tree experts have researched the tree, but this has lead to various outcomes, depending on the tree expert.
Meanwhile, the chestnut tree is gaining international fame. Press agencies from the UK (BBC), US (CNN, Fox, NBC), France, Germany and Canada have come to Amsterdam to report about the tree. As the garden in which the tree is located is quite small, the film crews will be split up in shifts of half an hour to enable them to make their reports.
The cutting down will be broadcast live by the local tv station AT5.
More news:
- one of the neighbours of the tree has collected chestnuts in his garden that fell from the Anne Frank tree, and now offers them for sale on Ebay. The highest bid so far is around E 200,-. The neighbour claims to have a few thousand of them.
- the only surviving relative of Anne Frank, Buddy Elias, who now lives in Switzerland, has said he thinks the tree should be saved at all cost. According to him, the tree is the only thing that connected Anne Frank with nature during her forced stay in the back house at the Prinsengracht canal.
