Peperzak Middle School surprises namesake holocaust survivor with sapling from Anne Frank’s tree for 101st birthday

Forced to hide from Nazi forces, Anne Frank had little exposure to the outside world beyond the cramped attic she shared with her family.

As World War II raged outside their hiding place, her family cowered under the sounds of raid sirens, aerial battles and bombings over their Amsterdam refuge. From the same uncovered window in her annex that Frank could observe in fear the war that absorbed the world, she found some peace in watching sunlight stream through dew-covered branches of a massive chestnut tree growing next to her attic.

“The two of us looked out at the blue sky, the bare chestnut tree glistened with dew, the seagulls and other birds glinting with silver as they swooped through the air, and we were so moved and entranced that we couldn’t speak,” Frank wrote on Feb. 23, 1944, describing a moment of calm she shared with 15-year-old Peter van Pels who also hid in the attic.

The tree was dutifully preserved along with the rest of Frank’s hiding space. In 2005, the Anne Frank House preserved and germinated several of the tree’s chestnuts to keep the lineage alive and planted them at various locations as a global living memorial of the devastation of the Holocaust.

Peperzak Middle School will soon receive one of those saplings to be planted on the campus this spring. The school surprised its namesake and local Holocaust survivor, Carla Olman Peperzak, on her 101st birthday celebration at the school on Thursday.

“Anne wrote about it in her diary, the feeling of the different seasons and how to be in hiding like that and see this tree,” Peperzak said after her surprise.

Peperzak grew up near the Franks in Amsterdam and even knew Anne’s older sister, Margot. During the Holocaust, Peperzak joined the Dutch Resistance to help save other Jews from the Holocaust. Forgery, disguise, even “flirting with Nazis,” Peperzak’s resistance took bravery and selflessness that goes on to inspire the kids at her school.

She’d been working for years to get her school a sapling and immediately shed tears after the surprise.

“It’s amazing; it’s just so very, very special,” the 101-year-old said. “It’s hard to explain what a tree means, but it’s terribly, terribly important for me.”

Principal Andre Wicks unveiled the surprise at a full school assembly attended by members of her family and friends visiting from as far as Holland. Students serenaded Peperzak, presented a video of how she inspires and, after the assembly, scurried to the gym floor to take pictures with the celebrity and collect her signature on scraps of paper.

“She inspired me, and it’s very brave for her to do something that young at an age to do that, and barely any people would actually do that,” said sixth-grader Zoey Mitchell, who plans to interview Peperzak for a history project she’s working on.

“It’s amazing; not many people would have this opportunity,” Zoey said.

The tree isn’t in Spokane yet; it will likely arrive in spring, and the school will hold a ceremony for its planting in a special spot on campus. Even before they broke ground on the new school in 2022, Capital Projects Director Greg Forsyth made room for what will someday be a massive tree while planning the landscaping.

When Peperzak students stare out the windows of their school named for a local hero they revere, they’ll be looking at a descendant of the tree that connected Anne Frank to the outside world.

Peperzak hopes that when they do, they’ll recall the history she witnessed and resisted.

“What Anne wrote in her book, it really happened to her, because a lot of people don’t believe that this was happening,” Peperzak said. “I think that makes it probably more meaningful for the young people, I hope. I hope that they get somehow the feeling of how important this tree really is.”