Hiding from the Nazis in a cramped Amsterdam apartment, Anne Frank often gazed at a majestic chestnut tree visible through an attic skylight — her only window to the outside world — and dreamed of freedom.

Now a group of tree conservationists and local activists are fighting a last-ditch effort to prevent the badly diseased tree from being cut down, saying it is a living link to the memory of the teenage diarist, who died in a concentration camp aged 15.

"It's a monument to the spirit of what Anne Frank wrote, hope and light, which she did not have," said Sylvio Mutal, a neighbor whose study overlooks the courtyard where the tree is located.