 The Capitol will soon be home to the offspring of the very chestnut tree that grew outside of the secret annex where Anne Frank and her family were sheltered during World War II. Members of Congress will gather at the end of the month to plant the sapling, one of about 100 that were cut from the original tree in Amsterdam when it collapsed during a windstorm in 2010. “The Anne Frank memorial tree is an offspring of the horse chestnut tree that was featured in Anne’s diary writings,” House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wrote in a letter to members of Congress. The planting ceremony at the West Front Lawn of the Capitol, which is located on the Senate side of the building, is scheduled for April 30.
– A sapling grown from the chestnut tree that gave Anne Frank solace while hiding from the Nazis will be planted on the lawn of the US Capitol, reports AFP. The original tree collapsed in 2010 in Amsterdam, but it lives on in offshoots like the one that will be planted in DC on April 30. The National Journal notes a passage from Frank's diary in February 1944: ("We) looked out at the blue sky, the bare chestnut tree glistening with dew, the seagulls and other birds glinting with silver as they swooped through the air, and we were so moved and entranced that we couldn't speak." Frank would be captured about six months later and taken to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she died at age 15.