ATLANTA — A community is pushing for new ownership of a cemetery after they say it’s fallen into disrepair.
Greenwood Cemetery is the final resting place of those like Chick-fil-A founder, Truett Cathy, and is the home to a first-of-its-kind memorial to holocaust victims.
It is also a site on the National Registry of Historical Places.
People in the area want someone to take over the grounds to better honor the legacy of those buried there.
For 60 years, Karen Lansky-Edlin has come to Greenwood Cemetery to remember her mother.
Each Plaque on the memorial represents a holocaust survivor, imprinted with the names of family members murdered in concentration camps during World War II.
“Her grandparents, her aunts, the sons of the aunts and uncles,” were all victims, Lansky-Edlin said.
Built in 1965, the memorial to the 6 million is the first of its kind in the U.S -- designed, built, and paid for by Holocaust survivors living in Atlanta.
“It’s special because most Holocaust survivors are no longer with us,” Lansky-Edlin told Channel 2’s Michael Doudna.
But outside the memorial, Lansky-Edlin said she’s watched the cemetery fall into disrepair.
“The grass is overgrown, weeds, icy tombstones that are falling into the ground,” Lansky-Edlin said.
Now, grass covers grave markers as potholes pepper the roads in between final resting places.
“Everyone loves someone, and if someone you love is buried here, wouldn’t you want someone to love them the way you love them?” said David Y. Mitchell, executive director of the Atlanta Preservation Center.
Mitchell said the issues in Greenwood are not unique, but part of a growing challenge facing historic cemeteries is the rising costs of caring for the dead.
“Because it is the responsibility of living to take care of the dead, but you also have to know how to do it,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell and Lansky-Edlin say someone else needs to take control, whether it be the city or another third party that can come in to repair the grounds and better honor the legacy of those resting there.
“Because all these people who are buried here deserve that. They deserve for their final resting place to be a place of respect and dignity,” Lansky-Edlin said.
Doudna reached out to the owners of the cemetery, but was told it would not be possible for them to comment.
Both Mitchell and Lansky-Edlin say the city has talked about potentially getting involved, and they have reached out to potential other folks who could take over.
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