AMSTERDAM - The only living cousin of Anne Frank on Monday loaned a large collection of letters, photos and newspaper clippings to Amsterdam's Anne Frank House. the documents could offer new details about her life.

To mark the 60th anniversary of the publication of Anne Frank's diary, her 82-year-old cousin Buddy Elias officially handed over the 1,500 documents and 3,750 photos, which have been digitized and will be made available to researchers.

Anne's father, Otto, published the diary, which chronicles the girl's two-year period in hiding in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, in 1947. It has sold more than 30 million copies and been translated into over 60 languages.

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The collection includes a notebook belonging to Otto Frank, in which he recorded his thoughts when the Netherlands was freed from German occupation, as well as a study book that may have inspired Anne Frank to write short stories.

Also included in the collection are notebooks that Anne and her sister Margot used to study, letters they had sent, and newspaper articles about Anne that Otto Frank kept.

Anne and her family were discovered in August 1944 in the secret annex of a canalside warehouse and sent to concentration camps. Anne, then aged 15, and her sister Margot died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen camp in 1945, weeks before it was liberated.

"It is very special that the family kept so many documents," said Teresien Da Silva of the Anne Frank Foundation.

The foundation, which also runs Amsterdam's Anne Frank Museum, hopes more documents will turn up in the future.

"A whole year is missing from Anne Frank's diaries," Da Silva said.

The Basel-based Anne Frank-Fonds, which administers Otto
Frank's estate, will offer an annual grant of 5,000 Euros for further research of the documents.