AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — The chestnut tree that gave Anne Frank a link to the outside world while she hid from the Nazis won a reprieve Tuesday when a judge ordered the city to reconsider whether the diseased tree can be saved. Judge Jurjen Bade adjourned a hearing and took witnesses and court officials with him to inspect the tree, watching as experts tapped its trunk to point out the rotten wood afflicted by fungus. Some fear the tree, if it fell, would damage the nearby Anne Frank House museum, which includes the apartment where the Jewish teenager and her family hid from the Nazis for 25 months during World War II.
Anne Frank referred to the tree several times in her diary. She could see the tree through the attic skylight, the only window that wasn’t blacked out. The city issued the order last week to fell the tree, estimated to be 150 to 170 years old. Felling the chestnut would be “a last resort,” Bade said, and he told the city to meet with conservationists to find a solution.
