Anne Frank Handwritten Poem

A page in a friendship book

Dutch children of the time kept poezie albums, small friendship books in which classmates and family wrote verses, good wishes and their names. On March 28, 1942, Anne Frank wrote in the album that belonged to Christiane van Maarsen, known as Cri-Cri, the sister of her best friend, Jacqueline.

The poem is eight lines in Dutch, in black ink on white notebook-size paper now slightly discolored. It opens 'Dear Cri-Cri' and is signed 'in memory, from Anne Frank.' The first four lines are traditional, much-copied lines of encouragement that had appeared in a Dutch periodical; the second four appear to be her own writing. Together they advise a young reader to take up unfinished work again, to try harder, and to put right a mistake when others point it out. In one published English translation, the final line reads: 'That is the best memory one can make.'

It is a modest, ordinary page, the kind thousands of Dutch schoolchildren wrote. What makes it significant is the hand that wrote it and the date.

Anne and Jacqueline

Anne Frank was born on June 12, 1929, in Frankfurt, Germany. Her father, Otto Frank, moved the family to Amsterdam in 1933 and 1934. After the summer of 1941, Jewish children in the occupied Netherlands were no longer allowed to attend public schools, and Anne and her older sister, Margot, moved to the Jewish Lyceum.

There Anne became best friends with Jacqueline van Maarsen, born in Amsterdam on January 30, 1929, to a Dutch-Jewish father and a French Christian mother. The two girls visited each other's homes and did their homework together. Jacqueline's mother had the 'J' removed from the family's identity cards, which allowed them to escape persecution; most of her father's family were killed in camps including Auschwitz and Sobibor.

On her 13th birthday, June 12, 1942, Anne received an autograph book with a red-and-white checked cover, which she used as a diary. In it she wrote about Jacqueline, and in hiding she wrote her a farewell letter vowing lifelong friendship; Jacqueline read it only after the diary was published. Jacqueline van Maarsen later became a bookbinder and wrote five books about Anne, beginning with Anne and Jopie in 1990. She died in Amsterdam on February 13, 2025, at 96.

Amsterdam in 1942

Germany occupied the Netherlands in May 1940. In January 1942, the month of the Wannsee Conference, Jews across the Netherlands were ordered into three Jewish districts of Amsterdam. From May 5, 1942, Jews were forced to wear a yellow star.

On July 5, 1942, Margot Frank received a summons from the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. The next day, July 6, the family went into hiding in the Secret Annex, rooms in the Prinsengracht building where Otto Frank worked. On July 15 the first two deportation trains left Amsterdam Centraal station for the Westerbork transit camp.

The people in the Secret Annex were arrested on August 4, 1944. They were sent to Westerbork and then, on September 3, 1944, to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Anne and Margot were transferred to Bergen-Belsen on November 1, 1944, where Anne died in February or March 1945, at 15. Otto Frank was the only member of the family to survive. About 102,000 Dutch Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, some 75 percent of the Dutch-Jewish population.

From an album to a memorial

The page stayed with the van Maarsen family. As Jacqueline explained in a note that accompanied it, around 1970 her sister tore the page out of her poezie album and gave it to her. Jacqueline kept her own entry from Anne in a separate album.

In November 2016 she offered the poem at auction in Haarlem, the Netherlands, with a reserve of EUR 30,000 and an expectation of no more than EUR 50,000. On November 23, 2016, after about two minutes of bidding, it sold to an unnamed online bidder for EUR 140,000, reported in the United States as $148,000. Jacqueline van Maarsen told Dutch broadcaster NOS that she would give proceeds toward building a commemorative wall bearing the names of the Dutch Jews killed in the Holocaust; a report at the time put the donation at a little over $50,000.

That memorial, the National Holocaust Names Memorial on Weesperstraat in Amsterdam's former Jewish quarter, designed by Daniel Libeskind's studio and founded by the Dutch Auschwitz Committee, was unveiled on September 19, 2021. Its roughly 102,000 bricks each carry the name, date of birth and age at death of a victim. Anne Frank's name is among them.

The Anne Frank House did not bid, saying the poem did not directly shed light on her life, though a spokeswoman called it very special that part of an Anne Frank collection had come out after so many years.

Why it is so rare

Very little in Anne Frank's hand has ever been sold. The auction house's co-director said that in the previous 40 years only four or five documents signed by her had come to auction, adding that most other finds were owner entries in books rather than manuscripts.

Earlier sales give a sense of the field: letters that Anne and Margot exchanged with American pen pals sold for $165,000 in 1988, and a 1925 book of Grimm's fairy tales bearing both girls' names sold in New York in May 2016 for $62,500.

Reports differ on small points. Most describe the poem as eight lines, while one called it 12 lines of free verse; and reports placed the date either three or four months before the family went into hiding. The verifiable dates are March 28, 1942, on the page, and July 6, 1942, when the family entered the Secret Annex.

The numbers

Written

March 28, 1942

Length

Eight lines in Dutch (one report says 12)

Anne's age

12

Days until hiding

Just over three months (July 6, 1942)

Reserve

EUR 30,000

Signed Anne Frank documents at auction

Four or five in the 40 years before 2016, per the auctioneer

Timeline

1. Jun 12, 1929

   Anne Frank is born in Frankfurt, Germany.

2. Feb 1934

   Anne joins her family in Amsterdam.

3. 1941

   After the summer, Anne and Margot are moved to the Jewish Lyceum, where Anne befriends Jacqueline van Maarsen.

4. Mar 28, 1942

   Anne writes and signs the poem in Christiane van Maarsen's friendship album.

5. Jun 12, 1942

   Anne receives the autograph book she uses as her diary.

6. Jul 6, 1942

   The Frank family goes into hiding in the Secret Annex.

7. Aug 4, 1944

   The people in hiding are arrested.

8. 1945

   Anne Frank dies at Bergen-Belsen in February or March, at 15.

9. 1947

   Her diary is published in Dutch as Het Achterhuis.

10. 1970

    Around this year, Christiane van Maarsen tears the page from her album and gives it to Jacqueline.

11. Nov 23, 2016

    The poem sells at auction in Haarlem for EUR 140,000.

12. Sep 19, 2021

    The National Holocaust Names Memorial, which the sale helped support, is unveiled in Amsterdam.

13. Feb 13, 2025

    Jacqueline van Maarsen dies in Amsterdam at 96.

The world in 1940

• May 1940

  Germany invades and occupies the Netherlands.

• Jan 1942

  Jews in the Netherlands are ordered into three Jewish districts of Amsterdam; the Wannsee Conference is held the same month.

• May 5, 1942

  Jews in the Netherlands are forced to wear a yellow star.

• Jul 5, 1942

  Margot Frank receives a summons from the Central Office for Jewish Emigration.

• Jul 15, 1942

  The first two deportation trains leave Amsterdam for the Westerbork transit camp.

• Sep 3, 1944

  The Frank family is deported from Westerbork to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Anne Frank Handwritten Poem is number 99 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (105 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Only the last four lines are believed to be Anne's own; the first four were traditional verses of encouragement.
• The album belonged to Christiane van Maarsen, not to Anne's best friend Jacqueline, who kept her own entry from Anne separately.
• Bidding lasted about two minutes.
• The Anne Frank House chose not to bid.
• Part of the proceeds went toward Amsterdam's memorial bearing the names of about 102,000 Dutch Holocaust victims, including Anne Frank.
• Anne wrote the poem 11 weeks before she received the autograph book that became her diary.