Anne Frank's beloved chestnut tree in the Amsterdam courtyard behind the "secret annex" where she and her family hid from the Nazi Gestapo during the last years of WWII is coming to America.

Sceduled to be chopped down due to disease and age, it was saved by an international outcry giving it a 15-year reprieve. Ten saplings from the original tree will be sent to the Annne Frank Center in Soho later this year for distribution around the United States as a symbol of tolerance.

For Anne, the tree symbolized hope and freedom. She wrote:

"'From my favorite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind,” she wrote on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1944.

“When I looked outside right into the depth of nature and God,” she added, a few paragraphs later, “then I was happy, really happy.'"

Anne last saw the tree in 1944 after being captured and sent to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. She died from typhoid at the age of 15.

The entire article can be read by following this link:

 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/nyregion/17frank.html