Observant Reader sent an email recently wondering what happened to the Anne Frank Tree at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock.
Which got us to wondering as well.
So we headed over for a looky-loo and confirmed that the tree, normally located on the park grounds in front of the center, was nowhere to be seen. In its place was a black plastic container turned upside down that covered the hole where the tree had been planted.
The tree is a sapling taken from the white horse chestnut tree that could be seen from the secret annex of the Amsterdam home where Anne and her family hid from the Nazis for more than two years during WWII.
She would look at the tree from an attic window and mentioned it three times in her famous diary.
"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," she wrote on Feb. 23, 1944.
Anne was 15 when she died in 1945 at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The tree lived for more than 50 years after her death, but was weakened by disease and blown down during a storm on Aug. 23, 2010. Before its toppling, dozens of saplings were propagated from it and distributed across the world.
In 2009, the Clinton Center was one of 11 sites in the United States to be given a sapling by the Anne Frank Center USA's Sapling Project.
The Anne Frank Tree was dedicated by President Bill Clinton on Oct. 2, 2015. Two glass panels etched with quotes from Anne Frank and Clinton stand beside a bench in front of the tree. Three other panels address Arkansas' difficult human rights legacy through descriptions of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII and the 1957 Little Rock Central High School desegregation crisis.
But where is the tree?
In a safe place, we are happy to say.
The Anne Frank Tree and a few others in the park were looking sickly, so it's been relocated to a nursery.
"We moved it in the midsummer, and it will be back sometime in the early spring," says center spokeswoman Rebecca Tennille. "It's a more protective environment and a little bit more controlled than being outside. Given the tremendous significance of this tree, a lot of work goes into protecting it."
This is not the first time it's been moved. The young, delicate tree has also spent time at the nursery to shield it from extreme weather, Tennille says.
It has been missed since it was removed this summer.
"We have heard from people who have expressed concern that it was gone," Tennille says. "I hope this is an opportunity for people to get interested in the tree and the exhibit, which is really poignant."
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