Michel Marcel Navratil

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Michel Navratil Jr.
Navratil c. 1994
Born	(1908-06-12)12 June 1908 Nice, France
Died	30 January 2001(2001-01-30) (aged 92) Saint-Clément-de-Rivière,[1] France
Other names	Michel Marcel Navratil
Parent(s)	Michel Navratil Marcelle Caretto

Michel Marcel Navratil Jr. (12 June 1908 – 30 January 2001) was a French philosophy professor who was one of the last survivors of the

Early life

Michel Jr. was born on 12 June 1908 in

The marriage was troubled, and in early 1912, his parents separated. The boys were put into temporary care, while judges decided who would get custody. They spent Easter Monday with their father, who did not return them at the end of the day. Michel, who was about to be served with a bankruptcy notice,[3] decided to emigrate to the United States before the notice was served, taking the boys with him. After buying White Star Line tickets in Monte Carlo, they travelled to England where they boarded the RMS Titanic.^[2]

Aboard Titanic

Michel, Edmond, and their father boarded the Titanic at

While in Collapsible D, Michel was fed biscuits by first-class passenger Hugh Woolner.[8] When the rescue ship Carpathia arrived at the scene, he and Edmond were hoisted to its deck in burlap sacks. Since they 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 them at her house until their mother could be located, which occurred as a result of newspaper articles which included their nicknames. She sailed to New York City and was reunited with them on 16 May 1912. She took them back to France aboard the Oceanic.^[2]

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^{[clarification needed]} by Encyclopedia Titanica^[7]

and later:

I don't recall being afraid, I remember the pleasure, really, of going plop! into the lifeboat. 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^[7]

Career

Michel attended college and in 1933 married a fellow student, Charlotte Lebaudy-Blanc, and they later had two daughters, Elisabeth and Michele.^[2] He went on to earn a doctorate and became a professor of philosophy at the University of Montpellier.^[9][10] Throughout his life, he maintained that his brush with death at such a young age, coupled with the loss of his father, strongly influenced his thought processes.^[11]

Later life and death

In 1987, he travelled to

He was one of two survivors to see the 1997 film, but did so at home,^[13][2] as opposed to survivor Eleanor Johnson Shuman who had met director James Cameron during the production and received a special screening of the film.^[14] His daughter Elisabeth recalled that her father was moved by the film. He enjoyed seeing the ship race through the ocean and break the waves the way that he remembered seeing it as a child. Reacting to the scene of passengers freezing to death in the icy waters, he stated that he hoped his own father had not suffered for too long before dying.^[13]

Navratil lived the remainder of his life near

• Millvina Dean (1912–2009), last remaining survivor of the Titanic sinking

Notes

• 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 age 43.^[7][15]
• Michel's daughter, Élisabeth, an opera director, wrote a book, Les enfants du Titanic (English: "The Children of the Titanic"; called Survivors in English) about the experiences of her father, grandfather, and uncle.^[16]
• Marcelle Caretto, the mother of Michel Jr. and Edmond, died in 1974.^[17]

References