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Mme. Navratil & sons (via Library of Congress / Flickr)
Sometimes a photograph speaks to you without the need for context. But sometimes context is irrepressible.
This photograph is about the reunion of a mother, Marcelle Navratil, with her children, Michel and Edmund. In April of 1912 these children were on a ship with their father bound for the US. He had taken the children from their home in France, unknown to their mother who had recently won full custody following a separation.
On board the ship Mr. Michel Navratil registered himself as “Louis M. Hoffman” and his sons as “Loto” and “Louis.”
At 11:40PM on April 14 that ship collided with an iceberg. The father put the boys in the very last lifeboat which launched without him. The children were cared for by fellow passengers and hoisted in burlap sacks into the rescue boat. The children spoke no English and had been registered under an alias on board the ship. In the press they became known as the Titanic Orphans. (more/wiki)
