Ms. Anna-Raphaela Schmitz

Professional Background

Anna-Raphaela Schmitz is currently PhD candidate and researcher at the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History (Germany). She holds a MA in Jewish Studies and Holocaust Communication and Tolerance from Touro College Berlin (Germany). As the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Institute for Contemporary History – Munich & Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Exchange Scholar, Ms. Schmitz will be conducting research for her project entitled “Rudolf Höss – Work Behaviour, Interpersonal Relations and Private Life of a Concentration Camp Commandant.”

Ms. Schmitz in fluent in English; and has reading abilities in Spanish, Dutch, and Italian.

Ms. Schmitz has attended several seminars, including the 2015 International Doctoral Seminar at the Fritz-Bauer-Institute in Frankfurt am Main. In the past, she has been awarded and held a Research Fellowship from the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure and a Junior Fellowship at the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies.

Fellowship Research

While in residence at the Mandel Center, Ms. Schmitz researched the life of Auschwitz Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss. Based on a "praxeological" biography of Höss, she is especially interested in how the Nazi leadership framework, the principles of behaviour, the social interactions and the networks of the perpetrators in Auschwitz-Birkenau functioned. This thesis thus offers new insights into the planning and execution of mass murder.  For her research, she will be using a range of the Museum’s collections, including the collections of Survivor testimonies.

Ms. Schmitz was in residence at the Mandel Center until September 30, 2017.