(Story told by Jay Hauben, son of Sidney Hauben, grandson of Feivel Hauben, great grandson of Yoshea Hauben at Hauben Thanksgiving Dinner 1999) Menache Hauben A year ago I heard from the family of Ann Hauben wondering if Ann had any Hauben family connections in North America. I would like to tell a little of Ann's story and ask if we think she is related to us. The story begins with Menache Hauben. I don't know that anyone here would have heard about Menache Hauben. He was born around 1860 in or near the town or village or maybe stetl of Wielkie Oczy in South East Poland. That part of Poland was in the Austrian or Austro-Hungarian district known as Galicia. Menache Hauben's Austrian name was Morris. In any case, Menache was married three times. His first wife was Chana. Her Austrian name was Ann. She may have died young. They had two sons born in the 1880's. The Haubens who are responsible for our being here today Joe and Willie and perhaps Sarah were also born in the 1880's. Menache and Chana named their sons Adolf (born Sept.4 1884) and Peretz. Strange to me that the Austrian name of Peretz was Maximilian. He was born in Wielkie Oczy Oct. 14, 1887. I will call him Max Hauben as I think his family did. By 1901 Max appears to have been in Czechoslavokia or what was called Bohemia which was also part of Galicia. Perhaps he was already in the Austrian army. It was about this time that my great Uncle Joe came to New York City. Perhaps Joe came to avoid being in the Austrian army. In 1913, Max Hauben was stationed or living in Vienna. On Dec. 8, 1913 he married there Ela Engel (born Dec.13, 1888) from Bohemia. The guess is that he had met her while stationed in Czechoslavokia and she had followed him to Vienna. About 10 months later they had their first child born on Sept 30, 1914. A girl they named Ann after her grandmother, Menache's first wife Chana Hauben. Ann had no time to know her father. The first World War started a month after she was born. Max Hauben fought in the Austrian army during the entire war. His wife stayed alone in Vienna where she ran a small delicatessen. Ann lived with her mother's parents in Neveklov near Prague. Max survived the war and returned to Vienna. He and Ela sold their delicatessen and moved their family to Prague. Ann was 5 years old but only now saw her father for the first time. In Prague, Max Hauben opened a butcher shop. The little Hauben family grew quickly with the birth of three more children by 1924. At one time they bought a small house 40 kilometers south of Prague. For a while Ann commuted by train to go to school. Sadly Ann's brother Otto died at about seven years old. I don't know much of what happened during the late 1920's and early 1930's except that the three daughters grew up and the family moved back to Prague. Max Hauben had a brother Adolph and a half sister Gussie (Gusti) who had children of their own. Gussie's mother Sadie Urim was Menache's second wife. Perhaps the Hauben cousins saw each when the Hauben siblings paid occasional visits to each other even though they were spread out in Poland, and Czechoslavokia. Around January 1939, Ann Hauben put an ad in a London newspaper regarding employment. Someone replied and she got a work permit to work as a domestic. In February she said goodbye to her family and left for England. Six months later World War two broke out. Ann received some letters from her family to begin with. Then these stopped. She held domestic and factory jobs and finally a job with the Czech government in exile, spending the whole war time in England. In 1945 with the end of the war Ann returned to Prague as soon as she had a chance. She searched for her parents and sisters. She found alive only one relative, an uncle from her mother's side. From old neighbors she learned how hard the war years were. She contacted all the relief agencies coordinating the location and relocation of displaced persons. One day she got a letter from the Red Cross that her mother and sisters had died in the hands of the Nazis. Her old neighbors thought maybe her father Max Hauben had been sent East. Ann never learnt his fate. Her Uncle Beda had for her a wallet that her mother gave to him for safe keeping. That along with a cut glass bowl and vase from her mother safe guarded by a neighbor was all Ann Hauben found of her family back in Prague. The Czech Ministry of Foreign trade where Ann worked wanted to send her to work in New York City in 1945. She had only been back from England for six months and perhaps had some little hope of finding some family alive. She turned them down. Again in 1947 she was asked if she would go to England. She said no again hoping for a chance to go to Australia. In any case she was asked in 1948 to go to Canada and that is where she went as a commercial attache in Ottawa. Today she says the only thing she knew about Canada then is that there were lumber jacks there. In Canada Ann Hauben met a fellow named Paul whose family had escaped from Austria to Canada, China, Columbia and five or six other countries. They were married in 1950 and had one daughter, Jenny born in 1955. In 1968, the three of them visited Prague and saw the names Elenora, Ludmila and Jirina Hauben on the wall of the Holocaust at the Prague Synagogue. To this day Ann does not know what happened to her father Max Hauben. The neighbor who had kept the cut glass bowl and vase gave it to them to bring back. It is likely very dear to them perhaps as a memorial to the Haubens in Prague who had died in Holocaust. OK. How do I know this story and what does it have to do with us? Well, Jenny, Ann's daughter visited New York City two weeks ago and told me some of it. Paul had written me some of it in the hopes of finding some of her family for Ann. And there is one more source. In the wallet that Ann's Uncle Beda saved from her mother was an old folded up piece of paper. It was an invitation to the wedding of Maximilian Hauben and Elenora Engel, Dec 8 1913. Jenny said she almost ignored this paper. But it contained the date and location of the wedding. Many people online have used such evidence to trace their family trees. When in NYC Jenny went to the Mormon Library here where there are microfilmed copies of the marriage registrations in Vienna for some different years including 1913. With great trouble but because she had the invitation from the wallet that her mother passed to her uncle, Jenny found the marriage registration of her Hauben grandparents. And it is a treasure. Viennese marriage registrations from that period have at least 12 columns of information 6 for the groom and 6 for the bride, including places of residence for the previous 10 years, their parents names and birth places, their birth dates and places, etc. It is from this document that I know Max's father's name was Menache and that he too was born in Wielkie Oczy and Ann learned the name of her grand mother Engel was Caroline. Wielkie Oczy is 15 miles from Przemysl where I think Joe, Willie and Sarah were from. --- Are we related? Let me give you my answer. Ann Hauben thought she had no family from her side in North America and very little family left anywhere. But her daughter Jenny has been searching and finding leads to Haubens all over the world. And I am convinced not too far back, we the descendents of Shea Hauben of Przemysl are related to Menache Hauben of Wielkie Oczy and his descendents. I find it hard to believe that Haubens that lived only 15 miles apart in Wielkie Oczy and Przemysl with many named after people like Menache would not be related. So as far as I am concerned we have found some more cousins, Ann and Paul and Jenny and I hope anyone who passes through Ottawa will look them up and say hello from our branch of the Hauben family.