The city of Sandy Springs and the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust have partnered to build a new location for the Anne Frank museum on the City Springs campus.
The commission operates “The Anne Frank in the World Exhibit” and will start a fundraising campaign to help with construction, said Sharon Kraun, director of communications for Sandy Springs.
Plans for the new building include an office for the commission.
On Tuesday, the Sandy Springs City Council agreed to provide resources toward the project, including the use of the city attorney and the Public Facilities Authority. However, the commission must provide proof of construction funding from an accredited bank to receive the municipal support.
Kraun said the commission and the city have not finalized the amount of funds Sandy Springs might contribute to the effort.
The Anne Frank exhibit had been located in the Parkside shopping center since it opened in 2010. It’s been closed during the pandemic. The late Mayor Eva Galambos was instrumental in bringing the exhibit to Sandy Springs, Kraun said.
Galambos fled Germany during the Holocaust when she was a teenager, Kraun said. And her late husband survived a concentration camp.
The “Anne Frank in the World” exhibit was developed by the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and is sponsored in this country by The Anne Frank Center in New York City.
In the Sandy Springs exhibit, more than 500 fabric panels of photographs depict Anne Frank and the world from 1929-45. Visitors viewed images of the Frank family enjoying recreational activities as well as the growth of the National Socialist Party propaganda and Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.
Sandy Springs and the commission have been looking for a new location to house the exhibit since 2018, Kraun said. Early conversations included the Sandy Springs' tourism office and the Sandy Springs Perimeter Chamber of Commerce, she said.
The city contracted an architect in 2019 for preliminary design.
“As the site [at City Springs] is construction ready related to utilities, general construction costs should be lower," Kraun said. "The site has excellent street visibility, which is important for marketing. Placing the exhibit at this location also aligns with the city’s overarching goal to establish City Springs as a hub for cultural and educational programming.”
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