Anne Frank declaration is ‘a real force for good’

THE 20TH anniversary of the United Nations’ signing of the Anne Frank Declaration was commemorated at a Westminster event this week.

Helen Grant, Conservative MP for Maidstone and The Weald, who hosted the gathering at Portcullis House, called the declaration “a real force for good that is used so well to fight hatred and bigotry around the world”.

It was read out by Duwayne Brooks, a former councillor who was with Stephen Lawrence on the night the black teenager was murdered in 1993.

The declaration describes Anne Frank as “a symbol for the millions of innocent children” who were victims of persecution in the 20th century.

Signatories pledge their commitment to stand up for what is right, to defend those “who cannot defend themselves” and to strive for a world where everyone is “treated fairly and has an equal chance in life”.

It was originally penned by Barry Van Driel, an educator at the Anne Frank House museum in Amsterdam, for the tree-planting ceremonies that mark Anne Frank’s birthday in June.

But in 1998, Gillian Walnes Perry, founding director of the Anne Frank Trust UK, and its political director Nic Careem arranged for British political leaders to sign it.

Cherie Blair said the declaration was kept “on the mantelpiece of Downing Street” when her husband Tony was Prime Minister, Mr Careem recalled.

As the new millennium approached, the campaign went global and UN general secretary Kofi Annan put his signature to it in a ceremony in New York. He wrote: “If Anne Frank, in her living hell, could summon the power to imagine a better, peaceful world, a future free of suffering and persecution, then surely we can summon the will to make that day come to pass.”

Mrs Walnes Perry, whose book, The Legacy of Anne Frank, documents the enduring impact of the young diarist, recalled “one of the most remarkable examples” of its place in history.

Nelson Mandela — who opened an exhibition on Anne Frank in Johannesburg in 1994 — had not only read her diary during his long incarceration on Robben Island but encouraged fellow inmates to study it. It became so wellthumbed that pages began to fall out. To ensure they did not get lost, prisoners made copies of them by hand.

She is a symbol for millions of innocent children’