Storm topples chestnut tree that comforted Anne Frank in hiding

The towering chestnut tree that comforted Anne Frank in her Amsterdam attic was toppled yesterday by a heavy storm. High winds and whipping rain downed the 150-year-old tree, which crashed across several neighboring gardens and sheds.

The falling tree missed the nearby Anne Frank House, a museum filled with tourists at the time of the crash. "Someone yelled, 'It's falling. The tree is falling,'" said museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostart. "Luckily, nobody was hurt." The trunk snapped off about three feet above the ground during the storm.

Frank referenced the tree in her diary, including a May 1944 entry just months before she was betrayed and turned over to the Nazis. "Our chestnut tree is in full blossom," wrote the Jewish teen. "It is covered with leaves and is even more beautiful than last year."

But the historic tree was afflicted with a fungus and rot, leading Amsterdam officials to consider its removal in 2007. A worldwide campaign was launched to save the tree, and its trunk was bolstered with a steel frame in 2008 to keep it from tipping. Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945.

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