Michel Marcel Navratil

Michel Navratil Jr.
Born	(1908-06-12)12 June 1908 Nice, France
Died	30 January 2001(2001-01-30) (aged 92) Montpellier, France
Parent(s)	Michel Navratil and Marcelle Caretto

Michel Marcel Navratil, Jr. (June 12, 1908 – January 30, 2001) was one of the last survivors of the sinking of RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912. Michel, along with his brother, Edmond Navratil (1910–1953), were known as the "Titanic Orphans", having been the only children rescued without a parent or guardian. He was the last male survivor of the Titanic.

Early life

Michel Marcel Navratil was born on June 12, 1908 in Nice, France to Michel Navratil, a tailor and Slovak immigrant to France, and Marcelle Caretto, an Italian, who had married in London. Michel had a younger brother, Edmond Roger Navratil, who was born on March 5, 1910.

The marriage was troubled, and in early 1912, Michel and Marcelle separated. Marcelle was awarded full custody of their two children. Marcelle allowed her sons to stay with their father over the Easter weekend; however, when she went to collect them, they had disappeared. Michel had decided to emigrate to the United States and to take his children with him. After a brief stay in Monte Carlo, the three traveled to England where they boarded RMS Titanic.

Titanic

Michel, right, and his brother, Edmond, in a photograph taken to aid in their identification after the sinking

Another photograph of the brothers, published 22 April 1912, identifying them as Louis and "Lola".

Michel, his brother, and his father boarded RMS Titanic at Southampton, England on April 10, 1912, as second-class passengers. For the journey, the elder Navratil assumed the alias 'Louis M. Hoffman', and the boys were booked as 'Loto' and 'Louis'. On board the ship, Navratil led passengers to believe that he was a widower. He let his sons out of his sight only once, when he allowed a French-speaking woman, Bertha Lehmann, to watch them for a few hours while he played cards.

After Titanic’s collision with an iceberg, at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, M. Navratil placed Michel and his brother in Collapsible D, the last lifeboat successfully launched from the ship. Michel, although not quite four years old at the time, later claimed to remember his father telling him: "My child, when your mother comes for you, as she surely will, tell her that I loved her dearly and still do. Tell her I expected her to follow us, so that we might all live happily together in the peace and freedom of the New World." The elder Navratil died during the sinking, and his body was recovered by the rescue ship, CS Mackay-Bennett. In his pocket was a revolver. Because of his assumed Jewish surname, Mr. Navratil was buried in Baron de Hirsch Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery, in Nova Scotia.

While in Collapsible D, Michel was fed biscuits by first-class passenger Hugh Woolner. When the rescue ship RMS Carpathia arrived at the scene, Michel and his brother were hoisted to its deck in burlap sacks. Since the two children were toddlers and spoke no English, they could not identify themselves and were soon referred to as the Titanic Orphans. French-speaking first-class passenger Margaret Hays cared for the boys at her home until their mother could be located, which occurred as a result of newspaper articles which included their pictures. Marcelle sailed to New York City, New York and was reunited with her sons on May 16, 1912. She took her children back to France aboard the RMS Oceanic.

Michel later recalled his memory of the Titanic:

A magnificent ship!...I remember looking down the length of the hull - the ship looked splendid. My brother and I played on the forward deck and were thrilled to be there. One morning, my father, my brother, and I were eating eggs in the second-class dining room. The sea was stunning. My feeling was one of total and utter well-being.

— Michel Navratil, translated with errors by Encyclopedia Titanica

and later:

I don't recall being afraid, I remember the pleasure, really, of going plop! into the life-boat. We ended up next to the daughter of an American banker who managed to save her dog--no one objected. There were vast differences of people's wealth on the ship, and I realized later that if we hadn't been in second-class, we'd have died. The people who came out alive often cheated and were aggressive, the honest didn't stand a chance."

— Michel Navratil, translated by Encyclopedia Titanica

Career

Michel attended college and in 1933 married a fellow student. He went on to earn a doctorate and became a professor of philosophy. Throughout his life, Michel maintained that his brush with death at such a young age, coupled with the loss of his father, strongly influenced his thought processes.

Later life and death

In 1987, Michel travelled to Wilmington, Delaware to mark the 75th anniversary of the sinking. It was his first visit to the United States since 1912. The following year, Michel joined ten fellow survivors at a Titanic Historical Society convention in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1996, Michel joined fellow survivors Eleanor Shuman and Edith Haisman on a cruise to the location of the wreck, where attempts were made to bring a large portion of the ship's hull to the surface. On August 27, 1996, before his return to France, Michel traveled to Halifax, Nova Scotia to see the grave of his father for the first time.

Michel lived the remainder of his life in Montpellier, France. He died on January 30, 2001, at the age of 92.

Notes

• Michel's brother, Edmond, worked as an interior decorator and then became an architect and builder. He joined the French Army during World War II and became a prisoner-of-war. Although he escaped, his health had deteriorated, and he died in 1953 at the age of 43.
• Michel's daughter, Élisabeth, an opera director, wrote a book, Les enfants du Titanic (literally "The Children of the Titanic"; called Survivors in English) about the experiences of her father, grandfather, and uncle.
• Marcelle Navratil died in 1963.