A handwritten poem by Anne Frank just sold for a hammer price of $148,641.
That's almost triple its $53,089 estimate.
 The poem is addressed to the sister of one of Anne Frank's friends |
The remarkable piece led an auction at Bubb Kuyper in Haarlem, Netherlands today.
It's from the collection of Dutch author Jacqueline van Maarsen, who was Anne Frank's closest friend growing up.
The pair met shortly after the Nazis invaded Holland and all of the Jewish children in the city were moved to a segregated school system.
They spent a huge amount of time together and started a table tennis club called The Little Dipper Minus Two (the constellation has seven stars, but there were five girls in the club).
Anne wrote the poem in Jacqueline's sister poezie book (poetry book). It's a short piece encouraging her sister to try her best.
It dates to March 1942, just five months before the Franks went into hiding.
Jacqueline said: "My sister (nicknamed Cricri) tore this page out of her poezie album and gave it to me around 1970.
"I know that my sister was not as attached to this verse from Anne to her as I am to the verse Anne addressed to me, and that is the reason that I am now putting it up for sale (....)".
Fortunately Jacqueline and her family managed to escape Nazi persecution as they were only half Jewish.
After the war, Anne's father, Otto, arrived at Jacqueline's home bearing his daughter's diary. Jacqueline was among the first to read it.
The record for a piece of Anne Frank's writing remains $165,000, set in 1988 for a letter she wrote to some pen pals in America.
