Wendy Lower

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Wendy Lower (born 1965) is an American historian who specializes in the Holocaust and World War II. She holds the John K. Roth Chair at Claremont McKenna College (since 2012) and, since 2014, has been the director of the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont. In 2016 she became the interim director of the Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

Lower’s research covers Germany and Ukraine during World War II, the Holocaust, women’s history, human rights, and genocide studies. Her books include Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields (2013), which was translated into 21 languages and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Jewish Book Award. Her 2021 book The Ravine: A Family, A Photograph, A Holocaust Massacre Revealed won the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust category and received other prize nominations.

She earned a BA from Hamilton College in 1987 and a PhD in European History from American University in 1999. Her career includes directing visiting scholars programs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2000–2004), teaching at Towson University (2004–2007), working at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich while directing USHMM’s oral history research (2010–2012), and serving as an associate professor at Clark University (2011–2012).