A copy of "Grimm's Fairy Tales," owned by Anne Frank, who recorded her life in hiding from the Nazis in World War II, and her older sister is to be auctioned in May.
The book – which is signed by Anne – is estimated to fetch between $20,000 and $30,000 at sale, according to New York City's Swann Auction Galleries.
The collection of stories was left behind in the Frank's apartment in 1942, when they fled their home and hid from the Nazis in a secret annex. The annex was located in the Amsterdam building owned by her father's business.
In 1944, everyone living in the annex was arrested after a tip off. The following year, Anne and her sister died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Her father, Otto, was the only survivor from the annex.
The book was eventually bought from a second hand bookshop in Amsterdam by a couple, Swann Auction Galleries said.
In 1977 the couple's children realized its significance and wrote a letter to Otto Frank, notifying him of their find.
He replied, expressing "how deeply the discovery of the book affected him, as well as his wish that the family keep the book for their own daughter." The letter from Otto is also up for auction.
Swann Auction Galleries say that the sale of the book "represents the first major offering of Anne Frank material at auction in over two decades."
Anne Frank's diaries, which reflect the despair of a child caught up in war, were first published in 1947.
According to the Anne Frank Center USA, they have since been translated into 67 languages and sold more than 30 million copies.