Anne Frank Tree Toppled By Storm in Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM (AP/CBS) The monumental chestnut tree that cheered Anne Frank while she was in hiding from the Nazis was toppled by wind and heavy rain on Monday.

The once mighty tree, now diseased and rotted through the trunk, snapped about 3 feet above ground and crashed across several gardens.

It damaged a brick wall and several sheds, but nearby buildings , including the Anne Frank House museum , escaped unscathed.

No one was injured, a museum spokeswoman said.

Several attempts to have the tree taken down in the past were unsuccessful.

In 1944, Frank, the Jewish teenager who spent 25 month sin hiding from the Nazis with family and friends in an Amsterdam attic, wrote in her 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, and at the seagulls and other birds as they glide on the wind.

The attic was raided by the Nazis and the famiy was taken to concentration camps. Only Anne's father, Otto, survived.

Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp .