Sun Sentinel: Anne Frank tree rises on Capitol grounds

Washington, DC, April 30, 2014
The chestnut tree that gave solace to Anne Frank and inspiration to millions of readers of her heart-rending diary is rising again as a fragile sapling on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose South Florida constituents include Holocaust survivors, arranged with congressional leaders to bring the offshoot of the original tree to a setting meant to symbolize freedom.
By William E. Gibson, Washington Bureau
The chestnut tree that gave solace to Anne Frank and inspiration to millions of readers of her heart-rending diary is rising again as a fragile sapling on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol.
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose South Florida constituents include Holocaust survivors, arranged with congressional leaders to bring the offshoot of the original tree to a setting meant to symbolize freedom.
Battered by storm and disease, the old tree that swayed outside Anne's hiding place from Nazi occupiers seven decades ago collapsed in 2010. But chestnuts taken from it were germinated and nursed into saplings that are being replanted this year at 11 sites across the country.
Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat from Weston, will preside at a dedication ceremony Wednesday along with Republican House Speaker John Boehner and other congressional leaders — a rare moment of bipartisan unity.
"In particular, I am mindful of the millions of children who will visit the Capitol in the coming years and witness the growth of what I know will become a mighty and beautiful tree that is reflective of the might and beauty of its namesake," said Wasserman Schultz, the mother of three.
Writing in her diary while gazing from the lone window in her hideaway, young Anne repeatedly described the majestic tree, the birds and the sky outside her refuge in Amsterdam. "As long as this exists," she wrote, "how can I be sad?"
Two years after she went into hiding at age 13, Anne and her family were seized and sent to a concentration camp. She was transferred to another camp, Bergen-Belsen, where she died of typhus about a month before it was liberated.
The diary, which has sold more than 30 million copies in more than 60 countries, poignantly brought home to generations of readers the dangers of anti-Semitism. The sapling project is intended to reflect the doomed girl's indomitable spirit in the face of bigotry.
Two of the 17,000 Holocaust victims now living in South Florida shrugged off the tree planting as a mere gesture.
"It's just symbolic," said Jack Rubin, 85, of Boynton Beach, a survivor of Auschwitz and other concentration camps who has more substantive concerns on his mind.
Rubin is imploring U.S. officials to pressure Germany and European insurance companies to pay claims made by aging Holocaust victims, which could help pay for their health care. "Why isn't Wasserman screaming about Germany?" he said.
Another survivor, Leon Schagrin, 87, of Sunrise, said that Anne Frank's diary and Holocaust histories "are all over the schools. The books are more important than the tree."
But leaders of the Anne Frank Center USA say the planting in "America's front yard" — the grassy mall at the foot of the Capitol, where millions have protested injustice — is a fitting way to nurture a spirit of democracy, tolerance and peace. They picked Holocaust Remembrance Week as the most fitting time.
"Anne was 15 years old when she died of intolerance," said Yvonne Simons, executive director of the Anne Frank Center. "We really believe this [tree planting] signifies that no child anywhere under any circumstance should be victimized.
"The tree signifies something in the Jewish religion also. It is the rebirth, the growth and the renewal of things. Her longing for freedom and justice is what we are aiming for."