A grand synagogue in Dresden, Germany, burned to the ground in the 1938 pogrom known as Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, has been replaced by a new one completed last November -- in part because of the efforts of Chapel Hill's Henry Landsberger.

   Landsberger, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor of sociology emeritus, helped raise funds for the $10 million building, on the same spot as the original landmark in his hometown. There, Landsberger's grandfather was senior rabbi for 50 years.

   For his efforts, Landsberger will receive an Order of Merit in Dresden on Tuesday from the State of Saxony, of which Dresden is the capital city. Saxony's Prime Minister Kurt Biedenkopf will present the award, for "outstanding service in fostering Jewish-non-Jewish understanding."

   Landsberger's work for the synagogue helped foster that understanding partly because of the broad range of people he helped recruit to support the project. And furthering that understanding was one of his motives in helping to rebuild the synagogue.

   Granted, he also sought a physical reminder of some 6,000 Jews who lived in Dresden in 1932, reduced to 70 by the end of World War II. And he wished to serve the community of several 100 Jews that has gathered in recent decades.

   But the project, which for the past five years consumed much of the time of a man who supposedly retired in 1994, also was about reconciliation -- about putting to rest the blind hatred of the past.

   No sooner had Landsberger retired from the university in 1994 than Lutheran pastor Siegfried Reimann, supported by Dresden leaders, asked him to help rebuild the synagogue. They wished to make amends to the Jews. Therefore, Landsberger appealed not only to Jews, but also to people of all faiths who wished to help right a wrong.

   He contacted erstwhile members of Dresden's pre-war Jewish community, now scattered all over the world. "Most were ready to make contributions," he said.

   Business and cultural groups helped. Supporters in Columbus, Ohio, alone -- a sister city of Dresden -- gave more than $300,000 under the leadership of Frank Wobst, an ex-Dresdener and retired banker. Other supporters included a U.S. group, Friends of Dresden, that was working to help rebuild the Lutheran Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady. The Frauenkirche collapsed after bombardment of the Dresden by English and American aircraft in 1945, near the end of World War II.

   "Led by Nobel Prize winner Dr. Guenter Blobel of New York, who himself made a substantial contribution, Friends of Dresden soon became very helpful in raising funds for the synagogue," Landsberger said.

   The city of Dresden and the state of Saxony contributed about $8 million to the total project cost.

   Reimann, the Lutheran pastor, had sought to foster positive Christian-Jewish relations for many years. He persuaded city leaders to rename a Dresden square after Landsberger's grandfather soon after German reunification.

   Reimann posed the question: If the city can rebuild the Frauenkirche, should it not rebuild the synagogue as well? He wanted Dresdeners to confront the atrocities of the past. So he founded the Association for the Building of the Synagogue, with Landsberger as a board member.

   Landsberger said he counted his grandfather, Rabbi Jakob Winter, as one of two great influences on his life. The other was the British guardian who taught Landsberger at age 14 that practitioners of different religions should honor and respect each other. In 1939, Landsberger's mother, fearing for his safety, shipped him to England when he was 12 on one of the Children's Transports to save Jewish youngsters. His father had just been discharged from the Buchenwald concentration camp.

   Later, his parents emigrated to Chile. Landsberger went on to American graduate schools and to the UNC faculty in 1968. He and his wife, Betty, also a retired UNC professor, are co-presidents of UNC's retired faculty association.

   Last November, 63 years after the Semper Synagogue was burned, the Landsbergers attended the consecration and opening of the new synagogue. Now, they prepare to leave for Dresden again on Sunday (March 17). Besides attending the awards ceremony, Landsberger will speak about the Nazi period in Dresden schools, sharing a video -- made in cooperation with UNC -- on the history of the synagogue from 1838 to the present.

   "We will spend several days there seeing the many friends we have made within the growing Jewish community and outside -- with friends and even ex-school companions from the year 1936-37!"

   However, Landsberger said he will not forget that here in North Carolina, contributions for the project came in from many sources: an Episcopal minister in Pittsboro, the wife of a British air force pilot who helped bomb Dresden and now lives in Wilson, the Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation and many others.

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