United Nations Radio

A young girl's record of life during wartime has been honoured as a treasured document of global importance.

Anne Frank

Anne Frank's diaries are among 35 items added to the Memory of the World Register, by the UN Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO).

UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura made the announcement during a three-day meeting of the international committee that identifies items for inclusion on the register, which ends on Friday in Bridgetown, Barbados.

UNESCO launched the Memory of the World Register to protect documentary heritage reflecting the diversity of the world's peoples, languages, and cultures from "collective amnesia." Preservation also ensures that these valuable items can be widely disseminated.

Anne Frank, a Jewish teenager from Germany, kept diaries during the two years she and her family spent in hiding in Holland during World War II. She died in a concentration camp after her family was betrayed to the Nazis.

Other items added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register include Royal Archives from Thailand and Madagascar, a manifesto from the Australian labour movement, and diaries from a cotton plantation owner in the Bahamas.

Dianne Penn, United Nations Radio.

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