DORIT WHITEMAN

WHITEMAN--Dorit Bader, PhD. Dorit Bader Whiteman, PhD--a Holocaust survivor, internationally known Holocaust author and clinical psychologist--died in New York City on September 30, 2022. She was 98.

Dorit extended herself as a psychologist, humanist and friend to anyone in distress. She had a gift for seeing through darkness and for guiding others through darkness. Always ahead of her time, she was barrier- breaking, prescient, worldly, erudite, charismatic, witty and irreverently hilarious.

Dorit was born in Vienna, Austria in 1924. After Hitler annexed Austria in 1938, Dorit and her family fled Vienna for London in a harrowing escape involving close brushes with arrest.

Before learning English, 13-year-old Dorit was sent to live with strangers in the UK countryside, away from the London bombings. She and her family reached the US in 1940 via the last UK ship carrying civilians before WW II started.

In the US, Dorit attended college in Georgia; as a young Jewish refugee, she adapted to the conservative Deep South in the 1940s. She later earned a PhD in Clinical Psychology at NYU.

Dorit's achievements include running her own psychology practice; directing the Psychology Department of Flushing Hospital's Mental Health Clinic in New York City; and serving as president of the Nassau County Psychological Association.

Dorit wrote three acclaimed books about Holocaust survivors who, like her, narrowly avoided the camps. Using a nuanced psychological lens, she was the first to study this important survivor population, which included 10,000 children who were rescued in so-called Kindertransports. Dorit's books are "The Uprooted," "Escape Via Siberia," and "Lonek's Journey."

A highpoint of Dorit's life was speaking in Vienna at "Letters to the Stars"--a large student-run event, in 2008, that focused on conciliation between Holocaust survivors and young Austrians who were born after their country committed Nazi atrocities. Dorit later wrote: "Here were students taking action to let history speak and to learn from survivors. Their efforts to reach us could melt any heart." Dorit believed this approach could guide other difficult conciliations.

Dorit led a class-action lawsuit against an Austrian auction house that sold the stolen possessions of Jews under Hitler. Her suit--widely covered in Austria--reached the US Supreme Court and benefitted many Austrian survivors.

Dorit spoke at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. She was profiled in the film "Vienna's Lost Daughters"; and consulted on the Academy Award-winning film "Into the Arms of Strangers." She told her Holocaust story on film to the Shoah Foundation.

Dorit loved museums, the arts, exotic travel and lake swimming. A nonstop learner, she never missed a day of "The New York Times."

In person, Dorit--an elegant fashionista--appeared taller than her five-foot height because of her ebullience and warmth, and because of her signature spike heels, which she only reluctantly surrendered at age 90.

With verve and dedication, Dorit maintained her psychology practice until her last days.

The Leo Baeck Institute will create an archive on Dorit's life. Her family invites you to send remembrances of Dorit for the archive by December 1 to ForDorit@aol.com.

Dorit is survived by her daughters, Lily Whiteman and Nadine Gregg; son-in-law John Gregg; granddaughter, Jade Gregg; and nephew Ray Kurzweil. She was predeceased by her husband, Martin Whiteman, Emeritus Professor at Columbia University; grandson, Lucian Gregg; and sister, Hannah Kurzweil.