Michel Marcel Navratil ( fr. Michel Marcel Navratil , June 12, 1908 - January 30, 2001 ) is one of the surviving passengers of the Titanic ocean liner, which sank April 15, 1912 in the Atlantic Ocean . Michelle and his brother Edmond (1910-1953) were known as the “Titanic Orphans” ( Rus. The orphans of the Titanic ), because the only adult accompanying them — their father — died, and the brothers, by their age, did not immediately were able to identify. Michel Navratil died last, at the age of 92, among the rescued males.
| Michelle Marcel Navratil | |
|---|---|
| Michel marcel navratil | |
 Michelle Navratil in the documentary Titanic - Death of a Dream , 1994 | |
| Birth name | Michel marcel navratil |
| Date of Birth | June 12, 1908 |
| Place of Birth | Nice , Third French Republic ( France ) |
| Date of death | January 30, 2001 ( 92) |
| Place of death | Montpellier , France |
| Citizenship |  France |
| Occupation | Philosopher |
| Father | Michelle Navratil |
| Mother | Marcella Caretto |
| Children | Elizabeth Navratil |
| Awards and prizes | |
Content
Early life
Michel Navratil was born on June 12, 1908 in Nice . Father Michelle (Mihai) Navratil Sr. (1880 - April 15, 1912) was a Slovak emigrant who was born in Sereda (when the Kingdom of Hungary existed), then moved to Hungary , and from there to Nice, where he began to work as a tailor. Mother Marcella Caretto (died 1974 [1] ) was Italian. Parents married in London on May 26, 1907 . Michelle had a younger brother, Edmond Roger Navratil, who was born on March 5, 1910.
The marriage of the parents was fragile. His father’s business began to fall apart, and he began to suspect his wife of treason. At the beginning of 1912, Michelle and Marcella divorced and Marcella took custody of her sons, but she allowed Michelle to take the children to her for Easter . Later, when she came for them, she discovered that all three had disappeared. Michelle decided to emigrate to the United States and took the children with him. After a brief stay in Monte Carlo, he moved with his children to England , where he stayed at the Charing Cross Hotel for a while in London [1] .
Titanic
During the disaster, Michel was three years old, Edmond - two. Michelle remembered all four days of his journey as “a feeling of complete well-being” [2] . Aboard the Titanic , Navratili boarded as 2nd class passengers, but for safety reasons, tickets were registered in the name of Louis M. Hoffman and his sons Louis (Michel) and Lotto (Edmond) [1] . The fake name was taken from a friend who helped Michel Sr. leave France. In front of his fellow travelers, Michel portrayed the widowed single father and said that "Mrs. Hoffman" had died. For all four days he did not part with the children, playing with them on the front deck, and made sure that they were always in his field of vision. He allowed himself liberty only once when he asked their neighbor on the dining table, the 17-year-old Swiss Bertu Leimann (who had escaped), who knew French but did not know English, to look after the boys while he would play cards. During the trip, Michel Sr. sent a telegram to Hungary to his mother in which he asked if his sister and her husband would be able to accept the boys if something happened; obviously, this was a backup plan in case they could not get settled in America [1] .
Although Michel was three years old, he well remembered many episodes of the disaster [2] . During the collision with the iceberg, he and Edmond were sleeping. “ My father entered our cabin where we slept. He dressed me very warmly and picked me up. The stranger [who was with him] did the same for my brother. When I think about it now, I am very moved. They [father and stranger] knew that they would die [2] . »Michelle and Edmond escaped in the last folding boat D. Launched as Charles Lightoller put a cordon of sailors around the boat so that only women and children could board the boat, Michel Sr. managed to transfer the children into the arms of a 1st-class passenger 24 -year-old Margaret Beststein Hayes. Michel later recalled that the last thing he heard from his father was: “ My baby, when your mother finds you, and she certainly finds you, tell her that I loved her dearly and still love her. Tell her that I expected her to follow us so that we can live happily together in peace and freedom in the New World . " [1] [2] The body of Michel Navratil Sr. was the fifteenth, which picked up the ship" Mackay Bennet . " Extract from the report:
- No. 15, MEN'S PROPOSED AGE - 36 YEARS, BLACK HAIR AND MUSTAR.
- CLOTHING - Gray coat with green lining; brown suit.
- PROPERTY - Pocket Book; gold watch and chain; wallet with £ 6; receipt from „Thos. Cook & Co. “; ticket; smoking pipe; revolver (loaded); coins; keys, etc .; Account for the Charing Cross Hotel (Room 126, April 1912).
- Second class.
- NAME - LUIS M. HOFFMAN. [one]
Like the rest, Michel Sr. was buried on May 15, 1912 in Halifax , but due to the fact that his fictitious surname resembled a Jewish one, he was buried not at Fairview Cemetery, but at Baron de Hirsch [1] .
Michel did not remember the time of the sinking of the Titanic; he and Edmond fell asleep as the boat moved away from the sinking ship. The next time, Michelle woke up when Carpathia appeared on the horizon. All the time they spent in boat D, 1st-class passenger Hugh Wulner fed Michelle cookies. They were picked up on board in bags. Since they were very young and did not speak English, they could not afford to identify themselves, and since their father drowned, Michelle and Edmond were the only unclaimed children among the survivors, and therefore the press called them “Titanic Orphans”. Margaret Beshtein Hayes, whom Michel Sr. handed over to the boys when boarding the boat, knew how to speak French and temporarily sheltered the brothers at 304 West 83 Street at their home in New York . Later, Marcella Navratil recognized her sons in newspaper photographs and, with the assistance of the White Star Line , arrived in New York, where she reunited with the boys on May 16. They sailed back to France aboard the Oceanic [2] .
Further fate
Throughout his life, Michel Navratil claimed that the struggle with death at such a young age and the loss of his father greatly influenced his mental processes [3] . While at the university in 1933, Michelle married his classmate. He eventually became a teacher of philosophy [4] . The fact that some wealthy passengers from the first two classes “bought” seats in boats Michel later commented as follows: “ We were next to the daughter of an American banker who managed to save her dog - no one objected. There were huge property differences between people on the ship, and later I realized that if we were not in the second grade, we would have died. Survivors most often turned out to be deceivers and aggressors, while honest people did not have a single chance. "
In 1987, Michelle arrived in Wilmington to mark the 75th anniversary of the disaster with the rest of the survivors. This was his first visit to the United States after 1912. A year later, Michelle joined the ten living at that time saved in the “Titanic Historical Society” in Boston . In 1996, Michelle, along with Eleanor Eileen Johnson and Edith Haysman, went on a cruise to the site of the tragedy, where then attempts were made to raise most of the ship's hull to the surface. On August 27 of the same year, Michel, before returning to France, came to Canada and first visited his father’s grave after 84 years [5] . The rest of his life he lived in Montpellier and died on January 30, 2001 [2] .
Edmond worked as a decorator, then became an architect and builder, he was also married. During World War II, he joined the French army and was captured, but managed to escape from there, however, severely undermined his health and died in 1953 at the age of 43 years [6] .
Michel's daughter Elizabeth, the opera director, is the author of the book Les enfants du Titanic ( Russian Children of the Titanic ), which tells about the sad journey of her father, grandfather and uncle [7] .
Bibliography
Source of information —- electronic catalog of the British National Library :
- Michel Navratil, Introduction critique a une decouverte de la pensee. / "Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine". Paris, 1954. 112 p.
- Michel Navratil, Les Tendances constitutives de la pensee vivante. / Part of "Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine. Psychologie et sociologie. " Part title: Les Tendances constitutives de la pensée vivante. 1. Sensori-motricité et imagination comme conditions de la pensée humaine. Part title: Les Tendances constitutives de la pensée vivante. 2. L'Ouverture de la pensée humaine à la raison. Paris, 1954. 2 tom.
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Mr Michel Navratil (Louis M. Hoffman) Encyclopedia Titanica . Date of treatment January 8, 2012. Archived on September 8, 2012.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 Master Michel Marcel Navratil . Encyclopedia Titanica . Date of treatment January 8, 2012. Archived on September 8, 2012.
- ↑ Michel Navratil - Titanic Survivor, 92 . New York Times (February 1, 2001). Date of treatment January 8, 2012. Archived on September 8, 2012.
- ↑ Last male survivor of Titanic dies . BBC News (February 2, 2001). Date of treatment January 8, 2012. Archived on September 8, 2012.
- ↑ RANDY KENNEDY. With Ship's Hull Back on the Ocean Floor, Titanic Buffs Return to New York . New York Times (September 2, 1996). Date of treatment January 8, 2012. Archived on September 8, 2012.
- ↑ Master Edmond Roger Navratil . Encyclopedia Titanica . Date of treatment January 8, 2012. Archived on September 8, 2012.
- ↑ Elisabeth Navratil. [1] = Survivors: A True-Life Titanic Story. - 224 p.