When a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? This philosophical thought experiment has raised questions about observation and perception for centuries. The following chapter begins with a similar question: had Anne Frank not referenced the horse chestnut tree that stood in the courtyard behind Prinsengracht 263, would it still have garnered the fame it has? One can assume not. Most likely, the tree would have had an unassuming 180 years of life and one day simply ceased to exist. A quick perusal of past news reports and online editorials yields a different fate: ‘Anne Frank's Spirit Lives on in Chestnut Tree’; ‘Seeds of Solace: Anne Frank Tree Saplings Span the World’; ‘Anne Frank's Chestnut Tree Lives on to Inspire a New Generation’. These articles in addition to many others reveal how inextricably linked the tree has become to Anne's story and memory. Remarkably, however, the tree never belonged to Anne. It had already been growing generations before her birth in 1929 in one of the many hidden ‘gems’ of Amsterdam, the ‘hofjes’ – inner courtyards dating to the seventeenth century that serve as focal points for the almshouses that encircle them. Even prior to Anne's time of hiding in the Secret Annex, one can imagine that local residents regularly peered out their windows and noticed this tree.