Four years ago, the Georgia General Assembly instructed a state agency, the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust (GCH), to raise funds and build a state memorial to victims of the Holocaust. The commission set about raising the money and finding a suitable location for this memorial.
The agency surveyed several sites. It looked at downtown Atlanta near the Civil Rights Museum and other exhibits, but found the challenges and expense was too much. The Bremen Museum is too small to host this exhibit, has limited parking and the Jewish Federation is evaluating the campus’ future, so too much uncertainty exists there for such a long-term investment.
Further, the state is concerned about locating its non-sectarian exhibit on a campus so closely aligned with sectarian organizations.
Kennesaw State? Too far from Metro Atlanta’s core communities to be viable.
Because the Anne Frank and the World Exhibit was already in Sandy Springs, GCH approached the City about locating it in our community.
Our founding mayor, Eva Galambos, and her husband, John, were each a survivor of this terrible historic tragedy along with numerous Sandy Springs residents and their families. John was sent to Bergen-Belsen, the same concentration camp in which Anne and her family perished. So, city council voted to invite this state agency to combine an updated Anne Frank Exhibit and the state Holocaust memorial in Sandy Springs.
Pursuant to the legislative mandate, the Commission has secured $4 million in donations and pledges along with a $3 million letter of credit to cover construction costs, now estimated between $3.6 and $5 million, and the creation of modern exhibits housed in the new facility. In addition, GCH is a state agency backed by the legislative purse, so this compromise ensures we face minimal risk while retaining full control.
After several community meetings to get citizen input, the council voted to construct the facility at the Blue Stone Building that once served as home to Heritage Sandy Springs. Real estate experts say it is economically unwise to invest in the existing building, hence a new facility is needed.
However, because this site has long been city property, council wants to retain ownership and control how the building looks. The state, justifiably, felt that if that amount of its funds were going into the project upfront, the state agency should own it.
So, the agreed upon compromise council was the City would build it and the Commission would pay for it via rent payments. The donations and the letter of credit indemnifies the city in case of default. In addition, the new building would house a City Springs police precinct and offices for Visit Sandy Springs, the city’s tourism office with VSS paying its portion, too.
The reason we don’t know the full cost is because the building is not yet designed, however the agreement ensures that whatever the cost, GCH is totally responsible for its entire share.
As we extend City Springs south in the next couple of years, there are differing viewpoints on what phase two should be. Some want to create a nightlife district with bars and restaurants along Blue Stone and Hildebrand and worry that the exhibit would have a dampening effect on that use.
I believe we should maintain the family-friendly environment we created at City Springs and this project’s educational components provide a great opportunity to engage children in history. As one middle Georgia school superintendent remarked, this would put Sandy Springs on the map as a Georgia educational center.
Some wonder why just the Holocaust which, while affecting many others, is seen largely as a Jewish tragedy. GCH is a non-sectarian state agency, so its exhibits will explore other historic aspects of that period. It looks at the concentration camp military liberators and their stories.
It chronicles the work of Georgia’s William Alexander Scott, an African American photographer who was charged by General Dwight Eisenhower to photographically record the horrors remaining at these camps, saying “someday, there will be those who will deny this ever happened.”
Other rotating exhibits will explore additional aspects of that era, too.
Meanwhile, it will feature technology developed by Stephen Spielberg that blends thousands of videoed survivor and liberator interviews with artificial intelligence allowing students and visitors to engage these historic individuals and receive specific answers to direct questions about what their lives were like – even decades from now. This is the high-tech marvel this exhibit will become.
It also will recreate the tiny room in which the Frank family hid so visitors can see the cramped quarters that required them to remain motionless and silent for days on end. Plus, we will receive a clone of the Chestnut tree that was the sole source of hope for Anne during her confinement.
Finally, I believe it reflects the values of our community. We are a welcoming community that celebrates its diversity and in these fraught times of our own history, we will have a small, but significant beacon that warns us all about the evil that can emanate from the dark side of human nature. For these and other reasons, I fully support the plan to bring this world-renowned story to our community.