Anne Frank Exhibit May Have Found Its Home

The “Anne Frank in the World” exhibit and the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust (GCH) are a step closer to a permanent home in Sandy Springs.

The City Council voted 5-1 on Nov. 2 to approve relocation of the exhibit and GCH offices to the city-owned Heritage Sandy Springs Museum near downtown. The dissenting voice vote was cast by Council member Jody Reichel.

Still to be determined is whether the existing building at 6110 Blue Stone Road will be renovated or replaced. An agreement with GCH over lease and use of the site also would require negotiation. The construction and financial arrangements will require City Council review.

Get The AJT Newsletter by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

City Manager Andrea Surratt told the Council that $2.46 million remains in the city’s capital budget for possible use in connection with this project. Council members made clear that their vote did not commit the city to expenditure of public funds.

Construction and lease expenditures on behalf of GCH would be backed by funds raised by the “Friends of the Georgia Holocaust Commission,” which was registered in 2018 by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)3 non-profit.

The Council action came three years after GCH began efforts to relocate the Anne Frank exhibit and after several months of public debate, in which two other sites were proposed and then dropped.

Chuck berk told the Sandy Springs City Council, “I urge you to please don’t put this off any longer. It’s time to make a decision.”

“But with all this procrastination, we are in jeopardy of losing. We’ve raised almost $4 million for this project. We’ve stopped collecting right now,” GCH Chairman Chuck Berk told the Council. “Sally Levine [GCH executive director] and I just had to talk a half a million-dollar donor back on track because they didn’t think the council was ever going to get to the point where they were making a decision.”

Before closing its doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Anne Frank exhibit, formerly located above a restaurant at the Parkside Shops, on Roswell Road, attracted some 7,000 visitors annually. The existing exhibit is archived at the University of South Carolina and GCH relocated temporarily to the Heritage Museum building.

Featuring seven “world class” exhibits, the enhanced Anne Frank display will be “a wonderful addition to Sandy Springs,” Berk told the Council. “This will help to position Sandy Springs as a community that stands up against hate, against racism, against anti-Semitism and for diversity and tolerance.”

“I urge you to please don’t put this off any longer. It’s time to make a decision,” Berk said. “Support your previous mayor, support the memory of Eva [Galambos] and let’s get this thing done and support the community.”

Relocation of the exhibit was approved on Nov. 2 to Heritage Sandy Springs Museum near downtown.

Mayor Rusty Paul has said on more than one occasion that it was the dying wish of Galambos, the city’s founding mayor, that the Anne Frank exhibit be relocated near City Springs.

The Heritage site was one of four locations considered by the city for the Anne Frank exhibit and GCH offices.

Rusty Paul, Mayor of Sandy Springs

In May, the city encountered resistance from within the Council and in the public, to the proposed construction of a “cultural center” on the green at the City Springs campus. That plan called for the city to expend an estimated $2.9 million to $3.3 million to erect an 8,300-square-foot structure across from the entrance to the performing arts center at City Springs. The Holocaust commission would have leased about 7,000 square feet and made annual payments of $150,000 for 20 years, with an option for an additional 20 years.

In recent weeks, public opposition also was triggered when Mayor Paul proposed that the Anne Frank exhibit relocate to the Abernathy Arts Center, a property ceded to the city by Fulton County.

The other potential location was the site of a former automobile repair shop at Hildebrand Drive and Blue Stone Road, adjacent to the Heritage Sandy Springs site. The city already has spent $2 million on architectural design work and $1.8 million to purchase the auto repair site, which now may be used for construction of townhomes.

The Holocaust commission was created in 1986 by Gov. Joe Frank Harris and re-established by Gov. Zell Miller in 1991. The General Assembly made GCH a permanent agency in 1998. According to its website, GCH annually provides Holocaust education training to more than 250 teachers, sponsors speaker programs that reach more than 20,000 Georgians, sends traveling exhibitions throughout the state, and records the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators.

Note: Atlanta Jewish Times owner-publisher Michael Morris is a member of the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust board and the “Friends of” GCH fundraising committee. Morris was not involved in the reporting of this story.