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Paul Fabry, international leader who helped develop N.O. World Trade Center, dies

Fabry helped develop the local World Trade Center in the 1970s and traveled the world extensively as a leader in international trade.
Credit: Contributed photo
Paul Fabry

Paul Fabry, the diplomat and world traveler who kept New Orleans on a global stage while promoting international relations as the longtime director of the local World Trade Center and International House, died Wednesday. He was 99.

Fabry managed the World Trade Center and its predecessor International House for 23 years before retiring in 1985. He came to New Orleans in 1962 to accept a position as director of International House, which was organized after World War II to develop trade and promote world peace. "Our thinking was that there would be no war if people traded in peace," Fabry told The Times-Picayune in 2001. "If people do business with each other, if they lend money to each other, they can't go to war. We were the children of World War II and these were the lessons we learned from it. We looked at this idea as the United Nations of commerce."

In 1968, he was a founder of the World Trade Centers Association in which the International House became the first World Trade Center in the organization. In the 1980s, it was merged with its sister organization, the International Trade Mart, to become the World Trade Center New Orleans. It was headquartered in a 33-story building at the foot of Canal Street, now being renovated as the Four Seasons Hotel and Residences. As a board member of the World Trade Centers Association, Fabry helped establish 300 trade organizations in more than 100 countries. The association later became headquartered at the World Trade Center New York, whose Twin Towers were destroyed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Even in retirement, Fabry, who spoke five languages, kept up an international profile, traveling with his wife to up to 25 cities a year. He once estimated that he had visited as many as 200 major world cities during his lifetime, frequently writing newspaper and magazine articles about his travels. “Paul was so worldly and well-traveled and taught me a lot about international relations,” said Bob Carr, the longtime broadcaster who worked with Fabry as deputy managing director of International House. “I always looked up to him as a mentor since I didn’t grow up in that kind of environment. But then again, not many of us do.”

Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1919 after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Fabry’s father was a military judge and Supreme Court general in Hungary. Declared an enemy of Hungary’s Stalinist regime, the family was deported. Fabry later received a law degree at Pazmany Peter Catholic University in Budapest and served as a captain in the Hungarian army. He was a military correspondent in Europe during World War II and was imprisoned after joining the anti-Nazi resistance. During the Holocaust, he worked with Swiss diplomats to assist Jews and others persecuted in Nazi-occupied Budapest. He was later honored by the Hungarian government with a Presidential Gold Medal for his service.

Following World War II, Fabry became chief of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s cabinet and was appointed that country’s envoy to Turkey. He resigned in 1947, refusing to return to Budapest since it was under Soviet domination. In 1949, Fabry and his then-wife emigrated to the U.S. He was working in public relations for DuPont when Dr. Alton Ochsner and other local civic leaders recruited him to come to New Orleans to lead International House, which at the time had 3,000 members.

“When Paul and his wife moved to New Orleans, it made perfect sense that he would want to live in the French Quarter, since it reminded him of other places he had traveled,” Carr said. “It just so happened that there was a house available for them on Bourbon Street, so we became neighbors and Paul lived in that house until the day he died.”

In the 1980s, Fabry was named honorary consul to Belgium. He was knighted by the King of Belgium after more than a decade of service.

In addition to his wife, Elizabeth “Betsy” Fabry, survivors include two daughters, Lydia Fabry and Alexa Fabry Knight; a stepson, Dr. David Rutledge; two grandchildren; three step-grandchildren; one great-grandchild and three step-great-grandchildren.

There will be a private memorial service.

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