USC’s Anne Frank Center gives awards to community members for continuing her legacy

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - The University of South Carolina’s Anne Frank Center is handing out this year’s Anne Frank Awards, honoring members of the community who are committed to telling the story of the Holocaust and Anne Frank.

The center said on its website that the awards “celebrate individuals and organizations who exemplify the values of courage, compassion, and a commitment to Holocaust education.”

This year’s recipients include teacher Heather Brougham-Cook and international community leader Ronald Leopold.

According to the center’s Instagram, Brougham-Cook, a teacher at Cross Schools in Bluffton, South Carolina, “reflects Anne Frank’s legacy of courage, compassion, and truth,” through her work in education, including bringing the traveling Anne Frank exhibit to her classroom and training more than 40 student docents to share Frank’s story around the Lowcountry.

Ronald Leopold, the executive director for the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, is also being honored with the center’s first Otto Frank Award for Outstanding Stewardship of Anne’s Legacy, according to the center’s Instagram.

The center said in its Instagram post that Leopold’s work “has strengthened global education initiatives, guided major museum renewal projects, and expanded access to exhibitions and programs that promote human dignity and empathy.”

Leopold said the Anne Frank Awards are important to instill humanitarian values in future generations.

“The legacy of Anne Frank has always been a legacy that is fully rooted in the historic experience of the persecution of jews in the Netherlands, but at the same time going forward in time it always needs new ways of telling the story,” he said.

USC’s Anne Frank Center is the Anne Frank House’s only official North American partner.

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