Anna Celina Guenter

Professional Background

Anna Guenter is a doctoral student at Northwestern University, where she also holds a Mellon Cluster Fellowship in Jewish Studies. She holds a master’s degree in history from Missouri State University, where her thesis, “Jewish Revenge in Postwar Vienna,” examined how Jewish Holocaust survivors used acts of revenge and revenge fantasies to confront former Nazi perpetrators and bystanders, and received the Missouri State Distinguished Thesis Award in 2024. She holds a bachelor's degree in American and British Studies with a minor in history from Bielefeld University.

Ms. Guenter’s research focuses on the history of the Holocaust in Austria and its postwar legacy, particularly in Vienna, with an emphasis on the “first victim” myth and memory politics in the Second Republic. She also works on modern European Jewish history.

Fellowship Research

While at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Summer Graduate Student Research Fellow, Anna Guenter will conduct research on Louis Haefliger, who is remembered as the “savior of Mauthausen.” Ms. Guenter plans to utilize the Museum’s archival holdings on the Jewish Community of Vienna.

Residency Period: June 1, 2026 – August 31, 2026