After storm, Anne Frank’s tree sprouts new life

New life is springing from Anne Frank’s tree after the 150-year-old chestnut tree was toppled by a storm Aug. 23.

The day after the storm, a green shoot was seen growing from its splintered trunk, according to the Associated Press.

Helga Fassbinder of the Support Anne Frank Tree foundation told reporters that the trunk will be left where it fell, so the shoot growing out of healthy wood on one side can flourish.

A global campaign to save the rotting tree was launched in 2007 after city officials deemed it a safety hazard. City workers caged the trunk in a steel structure to protect it, but this week’s storm proved too strong.

Anne Frank made several references to the tree in her famous diary, which she kept for the two years she and her family hid in the attic. She died at Bergen-Belsen in March 1945.