Dorothy Kraushar Finger

Dorothy Kraushar Finger

Wilmington - Age 88, passed away Monday, November 5, 2018.

Dorothy was born in Stanislawow, Poland. As a child, her parents and scores of relatives were murdered in the Holocaust. She survived a forced labor camp and hiding in the forest for a year subsisting on what could be found to eat there; getting typhus and losing the use of her legs for a while; being shot at by Nazis and having to dive in the winter time into a frozen lake to avoid being shot.

After the Russians liberated Poland in 1944, relatives in Delaware learned of her existence and brought her to America.

She graduated Wilmington High School and the Wilmington General Hospital School of Nursing. While in nursing school she met Louis J. Finger, and they were wed in 1953.

Dorothy became very involved with Holocaust education and co-founded the non-profit Halina Wind Preston Holocaust Education Committee, an interfaith volunteer group comprised of Holocaust survivors and their families, Holocaust scholars, teachers, clergy, and community advocates promoting Holocaust education. The Committee has, among other endeavors, organized teacher workshops, hosted educational trips for teachers, clergy, and the police to the Holocaust Resource Center Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and founded the Holocaust Resource Center at the Brandywine Hundred Library.

In 1983, then-Gov. Pierre DuPont appointed Dorothy as Delaware's liaison for 1984 to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.

She has been honored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Jewish Federation of Delaware, and the Wilmington Chapter of Hadassah. She has recorded interviews with Yale University, the University of Delaware, and the Shoah Foundation.

For many years, Dorothy spoke at schools, colleges, and churches throughout Delaware and parts of Pennsylvania. In 2015, she published a memoir of her experience, "Es Brent (It Is Burning)."

With all of this she embraced life, enjoying music, dancing, laughter, friends, and family, and reaching out to those she met who needed emotional support.

Dorothy is preceded in death by her husband, Louis; and is survived by her beloved children, Jonathan (Carol), David, and Susan (Geoffrey); granddaughters, Emma and Ariel Finger-Michaelson; niece, Leah Gordon Schutzman (David); nephews, Bernard M. Gordon (Barbara) and Michael Gordon (Tracy), and their children.

Funeral services will be 2:00 pm, Thursday, November 8, 2018 at Congregation Beth Shalom, 1801 Baynard Boulevard, Wilmington, DE, 19802. Shiva will be observed 7:00 pm, Thursday, November 8, Saturday, November 10, and Sunday, November 11 at the late residence. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Halina Wind Preston Holocaust Education Committee, c/o Jewish Federation of Delaware, 101 Garden of Eden Road, Wilmington, DE 19803.

SCHOENBERG MEMORIAL CHAPEL