Anne Frank tree must be felled

The old chestnut tree visible from Anne Frank’s attic window that comforted the Jewish teenager as she hid during the Nazi occupation of Holland is rotten and must be cut down, the Amsterdam City Council said Tuesday.

The Anne Frank House Museum, where the tiny apartment has been preserved, said grafts and a sapling from the original have been taken and it hopes to replace the once-towering tree with its progeny.

The chestnut is familiar to readers of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” She often longingly regarded the tree from inside the attic, which had the only window not blacked out to prevent outsiders from seeing movement inside the apartment where the family hid from 1942 until they were arrested in August 1944.