It is a common misconception that Java does not have pointers.  Java has
references, which are very much alike C++ pointers.  The biggest
differences are that there is no pointer arithmatic, and references always
point to a valid object of the same type (or null).  For a more
comprehensive list of differences, see
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/pointer.html and
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/reference.html

So what does this mean for tree structures?  Basically, you can use your
C++ code by deleting the *s and changing the -> to . (dot)
Yes of course it's a little more complicated than that, but not really that
much.

For an example of a binary tree in both C++ and Java, have a look at:
http://cslibrary.stanford.edu/110/BinaryTrees.html#java

What were you thinking of using to track the connections?  a matrix,
array indexes?  What's the matter with references? That is how it is
always done.