Amsterdam – A FOUNDATION set up to preserve a chestnut tree mentioned by Jewish teenager Anne Frank in her World War II diary must pay 16,000 euros ($20,600) for its clean-up, a Dutch court has ruled.
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The Amsterdam-based Support Anne Frank Tree Foundation said however it did not have the money to pay a company responsible for the historic chestnut’s removal and storage after it collapsed in strong winds in 2010.
“At the moment we don’t have the money and probably never will,” foundation official Arnold Heertje said, following the judgment against it by the Amsterdam District Court.
The Van der Leij company in 2008 built a steel frame to support the diseased tree, some 20 metres tall and estimated to be more than 160 years old, which was overlooked by the annexe where Frank and her family hid from Nazi occupiers until found out in 1944.
After it was blown down in August 2010, Van der Leij cut the tree “into very large pieces which were stored in a dry and ventilated area”, its spokesman Bram van Uchelen said.
If no payment was received, Van der Leij was under no obligation to give back the tree’s remains, the court said.