“From Refugee to Interrogator: The Wartime Experience of Paul Raber”

On view May 12 – November 12, 2023, in The Center Gallery, Second Floor.

Paul Raber was born in 1912 in Vienna, Austria to Jewish parents. His father manufactured paint and owned his own shop, an industry that Paul joined as an adult. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, the lives of the Rabers changed forever. Paul and his family were fortunate, they were able to flee to New York and opened a new paint shop there. Paul joined the U.S. military in 1943 as an intelligence officer with a group known as the “Ritchie Boys”, so named for their training at Fort Ritchie in Maryland. At the end of the war, Paul’s service included interrogating Nazi prisoners in Germany. He eventually returned to the States, where he started a family and continued to work in the paint industry before retiring and enjoying the end of his life in Florida. The exhibit features photographs, archives, and artifacts donated to the Museum by Susan Nolan, Paul’s daughter.