The Halitcher - Hornstein - Taub Family History

Submitted by Bruce Taub

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 Katell and Dora Ampel) already lived. Her parents (Benjamin Hornstein and Esther Levites Hornstein) and 3 sisters (Pepe Schertz, Rachel Ratzenstein and Clara Wasserman) remained in Poland. She had applied for permission to emigrate 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 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.

My grandmother's family (the Hornsteins) owned a mill in Husiatyn and my grandfather's family (the Halitchers) owned a blacksmith shop in Kopyczynce (a neighboring town).

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 were 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, their husbands and children and almost all of the Halitchers were never heard from again except for my one cousin, Bronia Ratzenstein Rosenblatt (1922-2002) 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 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 Husiatyn 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 on October 29, 1946. I was born on February 6, 1948 and my brother, Craig Michael Taub was born on April 1, 1953.

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