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PI/1453
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UNITED NATIONS AND SWEDEN AGREE ON MEASURES TO PRESERVE ARCHIVAL MATERIAL OF DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD NEW YORK, 19 December (UN Headquarters) -- The United Nations and Sweden have entered into an agreement for the restoration, preservation, and archiving of the historical material relating to Dag Hammarskjöld's tenure as United Nations Secretary-General from 1953 to 1961. The agreement was signed today at a ceremony at United Nations Headquarters in New York by Shashi Tharoor, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information and Ambassador Pierre Schori, Permanent Representative of Sweden to the United Nations. A great amount of historical material is available in the United Nations archives relating to the illustrious career of Mr. Hammarskjöld, including a wealth of fragile film that is in danger of deterioration or destruction over time if measures are not taken to secure its preservation. The initiative taken by Sweden in financing and carrying out this important preservation work will ensure the availability of this crucially historical material on the United Nations for future generations. The United Nations and Sweden have agreed that a substantial part of the material relating to Mr. Hammarskjöld should be transferred to Stockholm for restoration, preservation and archival storage in Sweden under specially controlled conditions. The Swedish Film Institute, which is internationally recognized for its work in preserving old films, is to restore and preserve the Hammarskjöld film material on behalf of the United Nations. It will subsequently be available in digital format for research and study relative to the life and times of Mr. Hammarskjöld at both the National Archive of Recorded Sound and Recorded Images in Stockholm and at United Nations Headquarters in New York. Dag Hammarskjöld was born in 1905 in Jönköping, Sweden, and died in an airplane crash in 1961 while on a peace mission to the Congo. * *** * |
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