A tree has been planted at the UN in memory of Anne Frank, on what would have been her 90th birthday. It is from a cutting from the horse chestnut that grew outside the annexe where the Frank family hid from the Nazis.
ADVERTISEMENTA tree has been planted at the UN headquarters in New York in memory of Anne Frank, on what would have been her 90th birthday on Thursday, June 12.
The tree is descended from a cutting taken from the horse chestnut that grew outside the Amsterdam annexe in which the Frank family hid from the Nazis during the Holocaust in 1942.
During this time in hiding, she kept a diary that would go on to become one of the most translated books in the world.
Sharon Douglas, CEO of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which donated the cutting, said: "Anne lived on one side of that window and the tree lived on the other side. The tree lived in the free air and represented to Anne a living symbol of hope and freedom.
"This little sapling grew from a cutting from the very tree that touched Anne Frank's heart through the window in the attic.
"The tree she loved will grow here at the United Nations, a place of hope and freedom.
"Just as Anne believed her tree symbolised the same hope and freedom, it is so beautiful that life goes on and the spirit of Anne Frank will grow and inspire as this little sapling becomes a new tree."
The Frank family was discovered after two years, and Anne died from typhus with her sister Margot in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in February 1945.