Bureaucratic red tape giving Anne Frank's tree a new lease of life

[Behind the Aegis]

Source: Reuters

A chestnut tree that gave solace to Anne Frank as she hid from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic has been given a lease of life by a bureaucratic logjam.

In November, Amsterdam city council said the giant tree had to be felled because it was so diseased.

Nine months later, the council cannot say when the order will be carried out because of delaying tactics by those upset by its decision.

"If it was a normal tree, it would have been cut down by Christmas last year," said Amsterdam inner city council spokesman Tom Boon. "But this has somewhat mythical status."

The Jewish teenager described gazing longingly at the tree in the diary she kept during her two years in hiding.



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