When I visited Friedrich-Wilhelm Junge a year ago on Weinbergstrasse in Radebeul, he appeared to me as I had known him for decades: a lively man, interested in social problems and original. I only noticed that he was almost eighty-five years old when he walked down the stairs a little uncertainly.
Generations of Dresden residents will remember him as a great actor. For us Jews, he was one of the personalities admired and respected by many Dresden residents who publicly campaigned for Jewish life and against anti-Semitism for decades.
Together with his wife Carla Junge, he supported the “Working Group Encounter with Judaism” with artistic contributions since the 1980s, from which the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation emerged in 1991. The aim of the working group was to bring the centuries-old history of Dresden's Jews, their suffering during the Nazi era, but also the individual survival of the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 and Jewish culture back into the consciousness of Dresden's citizens. These activities received no state support or even recognition. They were not wanted by the state and were therefore monitored.
After the GDR's People's Chamber decided to accept Soviet Jews in 1990, the Junges gave a reading at a charity event in December 1990 to support the Soviet Jews who had immigrated. Later, they also gave a reading as part of the Week of Brotherhood, which was organized by the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation.
In the 1990s, many Dresden residents discussed the possible reconstruction of the Frauenkirche. Only a few remembered that there had also been a synagogue in Dresden that had been destroyed during the November pogroms of 1938. Not even a ruin remained of it. For Karl-Friedrich Junge and other non-Jewish activists, it was a need and an obligation to build a new synagogue for the Jews of Dresden. Their motto was: First the synagogue was destroyed by Germans - then the Frauenkirche by the war that started in Germany. Therefore, a new synagogue must be built in front of the Frauenkirche.
So it was only natural that the Junges and their professional experience would support the support association for the construction of the new synagogue on Hasenberg. On the one hand, it was about taking the idea of a new synagogue out of the shadow of the towering Frauenkirche, and on the other hand, it was about raising money for the construction. In 1997, the support association held the first of around 30 benefit concerts. These mostly took place in the lower church of the Frauenkirche. Friedrich-Wilhelm Junge also opened the stage of the Theaterkahn (Dresdner Brettl), which he managed, for benefit events. In 1998, he celebrated his 60th birthday on his theater barge in aid of the synagogue construction.
The inner courtyard of the synagogue is planted with a grove of plane trees. The first plane tree was planted by the Junge couple. With the inauguration of the synagogue on November 9, 2001, their wish came true: a synagogue for Dresden's Jews - even before the consecration of the Frauenkirche.
He continued to support the Jewish community after that. For example, he immediately agreed to read a text at a memorial service for a murdered Jew.
Friedrich-Wilhelm Junge was not the only Dresden resident who campaigned for the reconstruction of the synagogue. But there were only a few well-known artists who were so committed to it.
On November 27, 2026, the new synagogue will be 25 years old. I hope that then, as was the case on the 20th anniversary, its construction will not be seen as a mere miracle. It was a miracle that was only made possible by personalities like Friedrich-Wilhelm Junge.
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