Dutch feud over Anne Frank’s ‘tree of hope’

FROM the window in the attic of her family’s hiding place in Amsterdam, Anne Frank could see the crown of an old chestnut tree growing in a neighbour’s garden. For two years, it was her only contact with nature.

The tree is gone now, having fallen during a storm in August, but its memory lives on — not only in Anne Frank’s diary but also in a dispute over its remains.

Board members of the Support Anne Frank Tree foundation, responsible for the tree, are incensed with the contractor they hired to build a metal brace meant to extend the sick plant’s life.

They accuse him of botching the job and killing the tree, and then stealing its remains and leaving them to rot instead of distributing them to Jewish museums and other institutions around the world that would prize them.

The tree, which was more than 150 years old and suffering from a fungal infection, was supposed to be felled several years ago. But neighbours and arborists protested against the city’s decision.

“This tree was a monument of hope,” said Helga Fassbinder, a member of the foundation board and a retired university professor whose house overlooked the tree. In 2008, the foundation assumed responsibility for the tree, which experts said could live another five to 15 years with the aid of a metal support.

Arnold Heertje, a board member, prominent Dutch economist and public figure known for his polemical stances, asked local contractor Rob van der Leij to build the metal structure, which had been specially designed. Heertje, who is Jewish, survived the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands as a child in hiding.

The structure, which cost about $170,000 (£105,000) to build, was finished in April 2008. As both sides agree, Van der Leij and his subcontractors donated around $120,000 (£74,000) of the cost. When presented with the bill, the foundation could only cover about half of the remaining $50,000 (£30,000), so Van der Leij offered the rest as an interest-free loan, and the foundation asked him to join the board.

Then, on 23 August, the 70ft tree fell. An emergency board meeting was held that afternoon at a café across from Fassbinder’s house. Here, the stories diverge. Fassbinder said that Van der Leij knew immediately that the structure’s failure was his fault, and that he wanted to remove the evidence as quickly as possible.

By the end of the meeting, according to Van der Leij and the arborist on the board, the members present agreed that he would remove the tree. But once the 30-ton tree was cleared away, Van der Leij received a letter saying the removal had never been ordered. “That was when my trust was broken,” he said.

Things went downhill from there. Van der Leij called another meeting to protest, and said that Heertje, who was not present at the previous gathering, reacted angrily, drawing comparisons to Auschwitz and the gas chambers. In a private meeting, he said, Heertje warned him to drop the issue and threatened to make use of his contacts in the media. Heertje denies both claims.

In December, Van der Leij’s lawyer sent the foundation a letter regarding payment for the tree’s removal costs, which insurance company Generali had decided to donate.

A few days later, the contractor received a fax from Heertje, copied to “other interested parties” and later quoted in the daily newspaper de Volkskrant, saying that Van der Leij was “like many who, in the footsteps of the destruction of millions of Jews, took their possessions”.

In response, Van der Leij filed a libel suit. Last month, he also sued the foundation to collect all outstanding debts, amounting to almost $50,000.

Sitting beneath a framed portrait of Nelson Mandela (a gift from the former president for building houses for the poor in South Africa) in his office in Amsterdam, Van der Leij shook his head. “There are only losers in this story,” said the contractor, whose company specialises in renovating council houses. “But I feel my integrity is at stake.”

“I don’t care about the money,” said Van der Leij, who said that if he wins, he will donate the proceeds to charity. “They signed an agreement in 2007, they said, ‘Yes, we have the money, we know what we are doing.’ But there was no money, there was not adequate insurance and the board members were responsible.”

Van der Leij added: “Now they are saying I’m a bad guy and I am stealing Jewish cultural heritage. It is a failure of morality.”

Under Dutch law, Van der Leij has the right to keep the tree until paid, but he has offered pieces of it to institutions selected by the foundation.

Wood from special trees is typically reused in symbolic ways. But Van der Leij said that if he were to release the tree now, its fate would be uncertain. The foundation admits it cannot afford to pay for storage, transportation or cutting. They list Jewish museums in Berlin, New York and Amsterdam as potential recipients, but officials at the New York and Berlin museums said neither would include the tree in their collections. The foundation reportedly said delivery company DHL would provide free shipping. But DHL said there were no set plans, and shipping might be free or offered at a cut price.

So for now, the tree is on the site of Van der Leij’s construction company. He denies storage is poor, saying it has been approved by a tree specialist. “It’s the Anne Frank tree,” Van der Leij said. “This is our responsibility, to do a good job with this.”