• by February 1, 2006

Today British actress Emma Thompson helped launch a virtual chestnut tree created by the Amsterdam-based Anne Frank Foundation. The Foundation was created to foster a dialogue between kids and to fight racism.

Thompson placed her electronic signature on the first page of the new site, which is named after a chestnut tree--one of the few pieces of nature the young writer Anne Frank could see from her hiding place in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands from 1942-1944.

The site (www.annefranktree.com) is designed as a virtual meeting place for kids and will enable the 200 Anne Frank schools worldwide to share details about mutual projects.

The Anne Frank Foundation already has two Internet sites, of which the oldest (www.annefrank.org) registered 54 million hits in 2005. Apparently, the actual chestnut tree that Anne saw from her hideout is ailing from a fungus infection. But cuttings are being taken from the 150-year-old tree in order to start new trees.