Читать книгу Black Man on the Titanic - Serge Bile - Страница 23

Survivors of the sinking of the Titanic,

Michel and Edmond Navratil, of Nice (France) sit on their mother’s lap in 1912.

Michel Navratil Jr.

At three-and-a-half years old, Michel Navratil Jr. (1908-2001) was on board the Titanic after he and his brother Edmond were kidnapped by their father. According to Encyclopedia Titanica, on the night of the sinking, when their father brought Michel and Edmond to the deck, Second Officer Charles Lightoller had ordered a locked-arms circle of crew members around Collapsible D (the last and ninth lifeboat lowered on the port side) so that only women and children could get through. Navratil Sr. handed the boys through the ring of men, and reportedly gave Michel Jr. a final message: “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.” When the boys were rescued, the international media was enraptured by the mystery surrounding them. Finally, their mother, who lived in Nice, recognized them from the papers and embarked from Cherbourg-Octeville to bring them back home. Six years after the Cherbourg tribute, the Navratil boys and Louise Laroche met again in Paris with another survivor, an English nonagenarian named Millvina Dean.