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Bruce Taub Family Album
Halitcher - Hornstein - Taub
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My mother, Anne Halitcher Taub (1926-1988) was born in a town called Husiatyn in Galicia, then on the Polish/Russian border, now part of the Ukraine. In 1927 her mother, Ethel Hornstein Halitcher (1899-1964) received permission to leave the country and emigrate to the U.S. where her brother (Samuel) and 2 of her sisters (Golda and Dora) and their families already lived. Her parents (Benjamin Hornstein and Esther Levites Hornstein) and 3 sisters (Pepe, Rachel and Clara) remained in Poland. She had applied for permission even before her marriage to Uscher Selig Halitcher (1897-1975) and the birth of my mother so only she was allowed to leave. She moved to New York by herself in 1928 when my mother was only 2 years old and after 5 years became a U.S. citizen. This accounts for the many wonderful photographs of my mother and grandfather that appear here, sent to her from Poland. In 1933, she tried to send for my mother and grandfather and encountered a number of difficulties since there was no official record in the U.S. of a husband and daughter. She enlisted the aid of a local Congressman and was successful.
On July 7, 1941 the Nazis entered the town of Husiatyn and shot all of the adult Jewish males who were then buried in mass graves. The women and children were sent to forced labor or concentration camps. The synagogue and most of the town was destroyed. Literally hundreds of our relatives perished including grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, etc. who all came from large families. My grandmother's 3 sisters, Pepe, Rachel and Clara Hornstein, their husbands and children, and all of the Halitchers were never heard from again except for my one cousin, Bronia Ratzenstein Rosenblatt (b. 1922) who was the daughter of my grandmother's sister, Rachel and Max Ratzenstein. She was somehow saved by a Polish farmer and his wife from the Nazis and miraculously made her way to across Europe to Paris where she was relatively safe. She met her husband, Mark Rosenblatt in a DP camp in Germany after the war and returned to Huisiatyn to see if any of our relatives were still alive. No one was. She emigrated to the U.S. in the early 1950's.
My mother met my father, Norman Taub (born, Nathan Coté; 1923-1997) at his welcome home party after WWII in 1945. He had enlisted twice and served in Central America, North Africa, India and China. He was the son of Esther Glickstein who was of Hungarian/Jewish decent and Joseph Coté who was French/Catholic. My father's mother later married Morris Taub.
My parents were married in the Bronx, New York on October 29, 1946. I was born on February 6, 1948 and my brother Craig Michael Taub was born on April 1, 1953. |
My Mother, Anne Halitcher and my maternal Grandfather,
Uscher Selig Halitcher (1897 - 1975, Born in Kopychyntse, Poland)
Husiatyn, Poland, Late 1920's or early 1930's
My Grandmother, Ethel Hornstein Halitcher (1899 - 1964)
Husiatyn, Poland
Ethel Hornstein and Uscher Selig Halitcher Engagement photo - 192?
Husiatyn, Poland
Uscher Selig Halitcher - Date unknown
My mother's maternal Grandparents
Benjamin Hornstein (d. 1932) and Esther Levites Hornstein (d. 1941)
Husiatyn, Poland
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My mother's paternal Grandfather, Beryl Halitcher
Husiatyn, Poland
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My Great Grandmother Esther Levites Hornstein and possibly her daughter Clara Hornstein Wasserman or Rachel Hornstein Ratzenstein |
My Grandmother's sister, Pepe Hornstein Schertz |
Newspaper Photo of the Synagogue in Husiatyn found in back of my Great Grandfather Beryl's photo
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For Gershon Levin, a medic serving in the tsarist army in 1916, the shock of recognition was immediate when his regiment marched through the ruins of Husiatyn, a town that straddled the border between Galicia and Russia: “Only then did I grasp the Destruction of Jerusalem . . . [O]n seeing what the Russians did to Husiatyn in the twentieth century, I could easily imagine what the Romans must have done to Jerusalem some two thousand years ago.” . . . Levin’s shock on entering the town triggered a leap across historical time: such things had not happened since the days of the Temple; but however terrible the present devastation, memory confirmed that it was not impossible. As real as was the ruin of the Great Destruction, it was perhaps just as certain that the Jews should endure. David Roskies |
Bronia Ratzenstein Rosenblatt (b. 1922)
Husiatyn, Poland
My Mother, Anne Halitcher and Grandfather, Uscher Selig Halitcher
Husiatyn, Poland, 1931
Anne Halitcher
Husiatyn, Poland 1932
My mother , Anne Halitcher and schoolmate
Husiatyn, Poland 1932
Anne Halitcher
Husiatyn, Poland 1933
My Mother and Grandfather's Passport Photo
Husiatyn, Poland 1933
My Mother and Grandfather reunited with my Grandmother in America
New York, 1933
Anne Halitcher
New York, 1933
My mother and grandfather
New York - Date unknown
My mother and my Cousin Bernard Ampel
My Cousins Bernard Ampel and Ruth Ampel Goldstein
New York - Date unknown
Great Aunt Dora Ampel Glaser
Bernie and Ruthie's Mother
Anne Halitcher
H.S. Graduation Photo
My Father, Norman Taub
My father's Mother and Stepfather
Esther Glickstein Coté Taub and Morris Taub
Spring Valley, New York (Date unknown)
Anne Haltcher Taub
Wedding Photo (1946)
My Parents and maternal Grandparents (Bronx, NY)
My Grandparents, Ethel Hornstein Halitcher and Uscher Selig Halitcher
Bronx, New York
Bruce Taub
Bruce Taub on the Howdy Doody Show
Bruce and his brother, Craig Taub
Maternal Grandparent's 25th Wedding Anniversary
Seated Left to Right: Penny Fiedler (Cousin), Golda Katell (Grandmother's Sister), Ethel Halitcher and Uscher Selig Halitcher, Anne and Norman Taub.
First Row: Aaron Katell (Golda's Husband), Fanny Katell (Aaron's Sister-In-Law), Morris and Esther Taub, Sarah Sarin (Cousin), Emanuel Katell (Golda's Son), Annette Katell (Golda's Daughter), Celia and Isadore Kaufman (Friends).
Last Row: Joseph Steckel (Friend), Dora Ampel Glaser (Grandmother's Sister), Jankel Glaser (Dora's Husband).
