May 3, 2016
The tree in the courtyard at 263 Prinsengracht shaded a little girl as she played and laughed and wrote in a diary. When strangers invaded Amsterdam and warplanes roared overhead, the tree watched the girl peek out of the curtained window of the hiding place. It watched as she and her family were taken away, and when her father returned after the war, alone.
The tree died the summer Anne Frank would have turned 81, but its seeds and saplings have been planted around the world as a symbol of peace. This is the story of the tree and a girl who have passed into history — and through it, still live on.
