Anne, Frankly

They're Cutting Down That Tree In Amsterdam

The chestnut tree opposite the Anne Frank house, now a museum.

They're going to cut down a chestnut tree in Amsterdam. Did they ask me? Do they know that I care? Do they know how much that tree has been a part of my life? Okay, so you're wondering what the connection is.

Let me explain. I received an email a few hours ago, with a link to a report by Geraldine Coughlan on BBC.com, saying that the old chestnut tree that comforted Anne Frank while she was in hiding during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands is to be cut down.

The BBC report says: ``Amsterdam city council said the diseased tree behind the building in which the Jewish Frank family took refuge has been attacked by a fungus. But after protests by environmental groups and the Anne Frank Museum, a cutting of the tree will be replanted.''

Yes, I can understand that. Yes, I appreciate the fact that cuttings from the original tree are so significant and so entirely appropriate. But you now want to know why I feel such a strong connection to the Anne Frank hideout, right?
As a 14-year-old, I learnt that my school (St Joseph's College, North Point, Darjeeling) was to produce a play in collaboration with our sister school, Loreto Convent. The play was `The Diary of Anne Frank'. I still remember clearly the moment I found out that I was to play Peter van Daan, the boy who fell in love with Anne. The play turned out to be one of the widely-acknowledged benchmarks of school theatre. Three decades later, I am still in contact with the star of the show, who played Anne Frank and who now lives on the opposite end of the world.
That play was not my first time on stage, nor was it my last, but I can honestly tell you that the role was one of the most intense experience of my adolescent years and it touched my heart in ways that I'm sure found an echo in the hearts of the other teenage actors.
Portugal-based Terry Fletcher, a committed webmaster, sent me that email about the tree. He knew only too well how significant it would be to me. Terry and I have never met, but about a year ago, he kindly published a feature article I wrote, about my Anne Frank connection. If you would like to read it, and see the photographs of that school play, go to Anglo-Indian Portal.
That was back in 1971. Sixteen years later, in October 1987, as I prepared to become a father for the first time, I finally made my long-awaited pilgrimage to the real building in Amsterdam where the families had hidden.
My wife and I were in London, en route to Toronto. But this was a side trip we had to make, I because I simply had to see the place, and my wife because she knew how deeply the role of Peter van Daan had touched my soul. We caught a pre-dawn flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam, before returning the same afternoon to London. We weren't going as sightseers. We just had only one place to visit.
The Anne Frank house wasn't even open when we got there, because we were so early. We sat in our overcoats and scarves by the silent canal, the same ancient canal that had run past the red-brick buildings during the war. And when the doors finally opened, we were the first to walk in.
The silence, somehow, was absolutely appropriate. I felt as though I were walking into a place I knew so well. I was so grateful for the fact that there was no one else there. It's been twenty years since that cherished visit, but I can still remember the feeling as we walked in. For me, it was a place I felt I had known ever since the cast had first sat down to read the script of the play. In some mysterious way, it was a little part of Amsterdam that I had - and always have - carried around since I understood the message of fortitude and tolerance that characterised the writing of a little girl forced into hiding in this very same building.
When I walked to the little window, it was like visiting a shrine. Even before I walked over to peer out, I knew exactly what the view would be, because I had read so many descriptions of it before. Yes, there was the canal. There was the deserted street. And there was the tree, the sight of which had sustained Anne.
Little do the people of Amsterdam how that tree has sustained many others as well.

FOOTNOTE: I only just found out there is an Anne Frank memorial in Boise, Idaho. Perhaps my close friends Carol and Neil (and some of my other readers) have been there. Do you have an Anne Frank story? Tell me about it here by leaving a comment.