Madeleine Truel: The Peruvian Heroine of World War Two

Madeleine seated front, 3rd from right 

Madeleine Truel was a Peruvian woman of French parentage who fought in the French Resistance as a document forger.

She was captured in 1944 and was tortured to extract information without success, following which she was sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin 1945. She died in Stolpe, Germany on 3 May 1945, after being made to walk on a "death march" just a few hours before the Russian troops arrived.

Alexandre Léon Truel and Marguerite Larrabure, were French immigrants who had arrived in Peru in the second half of the 19th century. They had eight children of which Madeleine was the youngest daughter, born on 28 August 1904. Madeleine grew up in the family home located on the old 54 Arequipa street in Lima. Her father managed a hardware store located at 150 Jirón de la Unión. She came from an observant Catholic family and studied at the school San José de Cluny, located on the corner of the Boliva Street and Jiron Washington in downtown Lima. French was spoken in her home and this allowed her to perfect her command of French along with Spanish.

Both of Madeleine Truel's parents died before she was 20 years old. Her mother was the first to pass away from ill health. Then her father died on 6 May 1918, in the clinic Maison de Santé in Lima, due to an infected leg wound which he acquired whilst he was working for the fire brigade putting out a fire at the "El Pergamino" shop. Alexandre Truel was recognized as a hero of Fire Brigade Nº3 and was decorated with a gold medal.

The orphaned Truel children decided to return to France at the request of some family members in Paris in 1924. Madeleine decided to study philosophy at the Sorbonne University. She later found work as an administrative assistant in the first branch of the Spanish Bilbao bank, located on the Rue de Richelieu. She told her workmates anecdotes of her life in Peru, and explained the traditions as well as the current affairs. She also liked to cook traditional Peruvian dishes for her french friends.

In January 1942, Madeleine was knocked over by a Nazi army truck. She was diagnosed with multiple fractures to the cranium and legs and spent about a year in hospital recovering from her terrible injuries. Due to this accident she had a limp that stayed with her for the rest of her days.

The Book Madeleine Wrote

In 1943, she co-wrote the book L'Enfant du Metro  (The Boy of the Subway) along with her sister Lucha. The book narrates a story of a boy who travels through the stations of the Paris subway. The book was dedicated to Pascal, the son of a family of Jewish-Romanian origins who were friends of hers. Her sister Lucha drew the illustrations for the book and Madeleine wrote the text. The publishers were Editions du Chêne. The seemingly innocent story book was Madeleine's covert literary protest at the German occupation of Paris and the persecution of the Jews.

In June 1940 when the German forces had invaded Paris, a married couple - Pierre and Annie Hervé - who were friends of Madeleine introduced her to some members of The French Resistance and very soon she began working in order to help them. Madeleine´s job was to forge documents, especially passports, and travel papers which were delivered to many Jewish fugitives and allied soldiers that had parachuted over the French capital. She used the pseudonym "Marie" when carrying out her resistance work. All the papers, passports and travel documents were forged by hand and she was so good at it, her work was rarely spotted as fake by German soldiers, and subsequently she saved many hundreds of people's lives in this way. 

Documentary on Madeleine

On 19 June 1944, Truel was captured by three German agents when she was picking up ink in one of the resistance's hide-away houses. Days before, a resistance comrade called Annie had been captured and with the information they had gathered from her, the agents set a trap which led directly to Madeleine's capture.

After being arrested she was driven to the SS offices located on the Foch Avenue and then she was temporary transferred to the Fresnes prison.

She was tortured by force for many days by the SS in order  they could uncover more details about the plans and the people of the resistance she was working with - but she refused to co-operate and didn't give away any details. She kept telling them that she assumed all the responsibility for her acts. Her family visited her and the only thing they could leave her was a Bible.

She was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1945. In the concentration camp she lived in a very heroic and charitable manner. She re-distributed the small amount of food that she received, in order to help those who needed it most. 

Gates at Sachsenhausen

She maintained good spirits in spite of all the terrible hardships she suffered at Sachsenhausen  and liked to entertain her fellow prisoners with stories that she remembered about Peru. For this reason she received the affectionate name "Bird of the Isles" from her cell-mates.

As the end of the war drew near, the Soviet army was approaching from the east and the U.S. military from the west. German troops began to become very disorganized and started to flee.

Survivors of the concentration camps were moved in what was to become known as the "Death Marches" in late 1944 and early 1945.

Prisoners at Sachsenhausen

The Death March of prisoners from Sachsenhausen concentration camp to Lübeck, located just over 100 miles away, began on 22 April.

Many prisoners were exhausted by severe malnutrition and the bad living conditions and weather they had been forced to endure - most were not physically fit to march and many were dying along the way.

The purpose of these marches was to hide some of the evidence of the evil brutality suffered in the concentration camps. A German soldier who became impatient with the slowness of the marching prisoners began to beat some of them furiously with a steel rod. One of these victims was Madeleine.

A few hours later the Germans abandoned the marching prisoners and stripped off their uniforms in order to hide from the Russian troops that were now pursuing them. Madeleine lost consciousness and was carried on a stretcher by her fellow prisoners. In spite of her small stature it took six people to do the task because they were all so weak and malnourished themselves. Eventually the group of survivors arrived in a small German town called Stolpe. When she became consciousness again Madeleine complained of suffered a strong headache and a high fever, and then shortly afterwards, she died.

Women Prisoners at Sachsenhausen

The friends who accompanied her to her grave, dressed her in a red dress and sought a Catholic priest to pronounce the funeral prayers, in the confidence that Madeleine would have appreciated that gesture. Before being buried, one of the companions knotted her bracelet with the Star of David on Madeleine’s arm, so that she could later be identified as a victim of the Nazi concentration camp. Another, placed on her chest red and white geraniums in homage to her Peruvian flag and nationality and as a sign of gratitude for how much she had taught them about her country of birth.

In front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, there is a memorial of homage to all the people who were deported from France during World War II, the great majority of names on it are Jewish - but in that long list also appears the name of Madeleine Blanche Pauline Truel Larrabure - one of the few Peruvian heroines of World War Two.

At the end of 1946, a survivor from the concentration camp of who knew Madeleine well, wrote a testimonial article in Le Figaro Newspaper . It is from this article that the story of Madeleine Truel's life and death was uncovered. Over the last 70 years Madeleine's name has almost been forgotten - even by her fellow Peruvians who have never honoured her in any way. 

In Peru, journalist Hugo Coya published the book “Final Station” in 2010, where he tells the story of the Peruvians who died in the Nazi concentration camps. The chapter on Madeleine is the first Peruvian text that claims the merits of this authentic heroine of the twentieth century. It shows us how it is possible to transcend adversity, overcome courageously, find fortitude in misfortune, and fully assume the defense of universal values ​​through solidarity and a faithful respect for human rights.

There has also been a short  Peruvian documentary film made about Madeliene. You can watch both a short English Language clip and a 30 minute documentary on her life below - the second one is narrated in Spanish but you can click on the YouTube subtitles on bottom right of the video player to get English subtitles.

 SHORT CLIP ABOUT MADELEINE

 30 MINUTE PERUVIAN DOCUMENTARY ON MADELEINE

Margaret Bechstein Hays & The Kidnapped "Titanic Orphans"

Margaret Hays

Margaret Bechstein Hays was born in New York city on 6 December 1887 and was a 1st class passenger on the RMS Titanic. She and her dog Bebe survived the ship's sinking, escaping on lifeboat no. 7. Following the disaster, she cared for two small children - known in the press as the "Titanic Orphans" - in her New York City home until their distraught mother came from France and claimed them. It transpired that they had been kidnapped by their father after a marriage breakdown, and all three had been traveling on the Titanic under assumed names, which made it much harder to trace their mother.

Margaret Bechstein Hays was 24 years old when she boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg. She was accompanied by Olive Earnshaw and Lily Potter who occupied first class cabin C-54. Gilbert Tucker, a handsome 31-year-old Cornell University graduate had originally travelled with his parents and sister to Europe, but he left them to head home earlier than planned in order to spend more time with Margaret and join her on the Titanic. He occupied cabin C-53.

When the ship hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912, Margaret Hays and Miss Earnshaw were in their cabin. When the engines stopped they went to Lily Potter's room, and then went off to inquire about the situation. When they returned to Potter's room they told her: "We have hit an iceberg but the steward told us we should not worry and should go back to bed." Although Margaret Hays was not concerned, Lily Potter was scared. They dressed and wrapped Hays' Pomeranian dog in blankets. and headed to C Deck, where Gilbert Tucker helped them collect life jackets.

Bebe - Margaret Hays' Dog

The group then went to the Boat Deck. As Margaret stood waiting and holding her Pomeranian, James Clinch Smith passed by and jokingly commented, "Oh, I suppose we ought to put a life preserve on the little doggie, too."

The three women and the dog boarded lifeboat no. 7, which was the first boat prepared. Lily stepped into the boat first, closely followed by Olive Earnshaw and Margaret Hays, still holding her Pomeranian dog. Little did she know that a few days later she would be caring for two children, whose own tragic story was not yet known

The occupants of boat 7 were rescued early on April 15 by the RMS Carpathia. Also on the Carpathia were two fatherless young boys who spoke only French. Margaret spoke French fluently and was concerned that they would be separated from one another. She volunteered to take the children into her care until their family could be located. The boys played with Bebe, while they were on the boat.

Once the two boys were settled in New York, a newspaper journalist named Nicola Greely-Smith visited the Hays home with the French Consul and interviewed Margaret Hay's father:

"Of all the survivors of the Titanic those two whose impressions would be most worth gathering remain resolutely silent. The two little waifs whose father perished in the disaster and who gained a temporary home with Miss Margaret Hayes, a fellow passenger on the ill fated steamer, they are still at Miss Hayes' home at No. 304 West Eighty Third Street, and not a word have they vouchsafed to anyone as to their names, their relatives or any other matter which might shed a ray of light on their antecedents or identity.

Under the shadow of a giant azalea they sat yesterday afternoon, each with a brand-new boat in hand with which they entertained themselves while the French Consul to New York strove vainly to extract some enlightening word from the elder boy, whose age has been given as three and a half.
To every question the little curly haired chap replied with a polite and baffling "Oui" and said nothing more.

   "Do you like to play with your boat?" asked the Consul, taking the little fellow on his knee.
   "Oui," came the monotonous reply.
   "What city do you come from?"
   "Oui."
   "Do you remember the big boat that brought you away from France?"
   "Oui."

This time the child's assent was rather bored as though he wished to add: "Why do you bother me with questions about that old boat when I have this new shiny, painted, wonderful boat of tin in my hands?"

Probably I am the only person to whom it seemed in the least incongruous that these two babies should be playing with brand new tin boats. The boats obviously delight them and bring back no memory of the night of horror which saw the younger boy tossed naked from the Titanic into a lifeboat while the older boy followed later clad in a flannel shirt.

That the two children are brothers is evident from their striking resemblance to each other. There is said to be a difference of a year in their ages, but I think the older boy is more than three and a half years of age. If not, he is very tall for his years. Both children have unusually beautiful chestnut brown hair which curls in loose ringlets about their heads. Their eyes are dark. Their faces of cherubic plumpness wear that expression of mingled melancholy and mischief so charactristic of children of the Latin races.

"I have read in the papers that the older boy has said his name is Louis" the French Consul remarked, "but I can get nothing from him to prove it. It seems more likely to me that as he answers oui-oui to everything, he is understood to say that his name is Louis, which might seem to have the same saound to an American. I cabled to France and will do everything I can to find the relatives of the children, but as yet I have gained nothing from them to aid in the search."

Yet the children are by no means stupid. They are sweet, well-mannered, gentle little fellows, and my only hope for them is that having survived the perils of the iceberg and the open sea they may not be adopted by some American family which was born with a gold knife in its mouth.

Incidentally, the question of their adoption in the event that no relatives can be found remains unsettled.

"We have no intention of keeping them," remarked Miss Hays's father, beyond the time when their relatives are found or the search for them is given up. A Montreal family who were passengers on the Titanic are anxious to adopt them, and my daughter says they shall have the preference. Of course, many persons here in New York have also offered to take them.

"The published story that the children were in the same boat with my daughter and clung to her instinctively, is a misstatement. My daughter left in the first lifeboat and the two children followed on in later boats. The smaller boy was tossed from the deck of the Titanic into a lifeboat without a stitch of clothing. The older child wore only a shirt when he was taken aboard the Carpathia. The survivors of the Titanic on board formed a ladies' committee, and as my daughter was the only one among them who had not suffered some personal loss through the disaster she was asked to care for the two children, and gladly did so. She was told that the two children had been in the second cabin of the Titanic in the care of a man named Hoffman, but we have been unable to get any clue to their whereabouts from the White Star line or anywhere else.

"But I believe the companies exact certain definate information as to the destination, etc., from purchasers of second cabin tickets," I said. "Why is it not possible to get such information from the office where a man named Hoffman purchased his ticket?"

"I'm sure I can't say." Mr. Hays replied grandiloquently. "I have never travelled second cabin or steerage, so I don't know anything about such matters."

Why, oh why, can I never learn to keep my distance from the aristocracy of West End avenue, even when it has given shelter to two charming, well-mannered little children of the second cabin? I dont know, I'm sure.

Lawrence Beesley - Titanic Survivor

Later, Titanic Passenger Lawewnce Beesley wrote about seeing the boys - whom he only knew to be called Hoffman - with their father on the Titanic and commented on the sensational story surrounding them being on the ship :

Through the (second class library) windows there is the covered corridor, reserved by general consent as the children’s playground, and here are playing the two children with their father –devoted to them, never absent from them.

Who would have thought of the dramatic history of the happy group at play in the corridor that afternoon? – the abduction of the children in Nice, the assumed name, the separation of father and children in a few hours, his death and their subsequent union with their mother after a period of doubt as to their parentage!

How many more similar secrets the Titanic revealed in the privacy of family life, or carried down with her untold, we shall never know.

- Lawrence Beesley, The Loss of the Titanic, Its Story and Its Lessons

Mr Lawrwnce Beesley visited the address at West 83^rd Street, New York City, which was the home of Miss Hays. He confirmed that the children were the same Hoffman boys who were playing outside the second class library on the Titanic. Mrs Hays said that she had made some progress communicating with the boys in French.

At the time, there was a Mr Lefebre who was coming all the way from Iowa, in case they were his children. There was also a woman coming from Nice who wasn't called Hoffman, and another woman coming on a liner from Liverpool - both who thought they may be their sons.

Hugh Woolner, a First Class survivor gave evidence concerning the boys to the US Inquiry on Monday, April 29, 1912. While in Collapsible D one of the boys had been fed biscuits by him.

A sailor offered me some biscuits, which I was using for feeding a small child who had woken up and was crying. It was one of those little children for whose parents everybody was looking; the larger of those two. 

Senator Smith: Its mother was not on this boat? - No.
How old was that child? - I should think it was about five, as nearly as I can judge.
Do you know of what nationality it was? - I could not quite make out.
Do you know whether it was English or American? - I should say it was not either. I should think it was -
Senator Smith (interposing): I mean whether it belonged to an English parent or American parent? - It looked like a French child; but it kept shouting for its doll, and I could not make out what it said before that. It kept saying it over and over again.
Were there two of these children in the boat? - I cannot tell. This is the only one that I had anything to do with. There were several other children in the boat. We handed them into a bag, and they were pulled up the Carpathia's side.
Have you seen them since? - Yes, I think I saw it once on the Carpathia. It had very curly hair. Light, brownish, curly hair.
Was the child identified on the Carpathia? - Not as far as I know.

When the real story about the boys emerged it was one of kidnap and marital breakdown.

Michel Navratil

The boys father, Mr Michel Navratil  had been born in Szered, Slowakia, he later moved to Hungary and then, in 1902 went to Nice, France where he became a tailor. He married Marcelle Caretto from Italy, in London, on 26 May 1907. They had two sons, Michel M. and Edmond Roger - known as Lolo and Momon, however, by 1912 the business was in trouble and Michel claimed that Marcelle had been having an affair. The couple separated, the boys going with their mother.

They went to stay with their father over the Easter weekend, but when Marcelle came to collect them, they had disappeared.

It was the recovered Titanic victims corpse in the well-cut brown suit that yielded plenty of paper clues, and led to the formal identification of Louis M. Hoffman AKA Michel Navatil Snr.” There was a receipt in the name of Hoffman from the offices of the travel agency Thomas Cook & Company, in Monte Carlo.

It appeared that Mr Hoffman made trips there in March, the Daily Mirror reported on April 23 1912:

“Mr Hoffman paid several visits to the office with his children, and appeared to be an antiquarian, specially interested in old prints.The employees there believed that he came from Bavaria, and that he was making a tour round the world. He had been staying at Nice, at the Hotel des Voyageurs.”

Navratil had decide to take the boys with him to America. After stopping in Monte Carlo, they sailed to England where they stayed at the Charing Cross Hotel, London. He purchased second class tickets (ticket No.230080, £26) and boarded the Titanic at Southampton, the boys were booked on the ship as as Loto and Louis Hoffman. His assumed name of "Louis M. Hoffman" was stolen from a friend who helped him and the boys to leave France.

He led his fellow passengers to believe "Mrs Hoffman" was dead and rarely let the boys out of sight. Once, he allowed himself to relax at a card game and let one of his tablemates, Bertha Lehmann, a Swiss girl who spoke French but no English, to watch the boys for a few hours.

Mr Navratil wrote to his mother in Hungary, while on board, asking if his sister and her husband could care for the boys; possibly as a backup plan if they couldn't stay in America.

On the night of the sinking, Michel aided by another passenger, dressed the boys and brought them to the boat deck. When Second Officer Charles Lightoller ordered a locked-arms circle of crew members around Collapsible D so that only women and children could get through, Navratil handed the boys through the ring of men. Michel, Jr., recalled that just before placing him in the boat, his father gave a final message:

Michel Navratil Grave

"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."

His fathers body was recovered with a revolver in his pocket. Because he had used the Jewish surname of Hoffman on his ticket, Mr Navratil was interred on May 15th, 1912 in the Baron de Hirsch Cemetery which was designated for the Jewish victims.


Whilst the "Titanic Orphans" were being sheltered at the New York home of Margaret Hays under the auspices of the Children's Aid society, their mother Marcelle Navratil, recognized her boys from the many newspaper stories about their plight and was brought over to America by the White Star Line where she was finally reunited with her sons on May 16.

The three sailed back to France on the Oceanic.

REUNITED WITH THEIR MOTHER

The Titanic Orphans are reunited with their mother

Mrs Navraril then took the White Star Line to court in 1914

Action in the French courts

Nice, February 9th (1914).
An action against the White Star Line arising out of the loss of the Titanic began today before the Civil Court here. The Plaintiff, Mme Navratil, sues for £6,000 damages for the loss of her husband. Her two children, who were also on board, were saved.

The Directors of the White Star Line contended that she was not entitled to appeal to a French court, as she was not a Frenchwoman. She thereupon asked for an adjournment for three months to enable her to prove that she was, and this was granted.
(The Times, Tuesday February 10, 1914)

Margaret Hays kept in regular contact with Gilbert Tucker after their rescue but eventually chose to marry Dr. Charles Daniel Easton, a Rhode Island physician in 1913 and the couple lived in Providence and Newport, Rhode Island. They were the parents of two daughters.

Grave of Margaret Hays Easton

Margaret Bechstein Hays Easton died in Buenos Aires, Argentina while vacationing with her daughter and granddaughter on 21 August 1956. She was buried at St. Mary's Churchyard, Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

As for the two tragic boys she had cared for, Edmond Navratil worked as interior decorator and then became an architect and builder. He was married and during World War II he fought with the French Army, was captured and made a prisoner-of-war. He managed to escape from the camp in which he was held, but his health had suffered and he died in the early 1950s aged 43.

Michel Navraril later recalled the Titanic voyage in a translated interview:

"A magnifacent ship!...I remember looking down the length of the hull - the ship looked splended. 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 dinning room. The sea was stunning. My feeling was one of total and utter well-being."

He described the events on the night of the sinking:

"My father entered our cabin where we were sleeping. He dressed me very warmly and took me in his arms. A stranger did the same for my brother. When I think of it now, I am very moved. They knew they were going to die."

 "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, There were vast diffrences of people's wealth on the ship, and I realized later that if we hadn't been in second-class, we would have of died. The people who came out alive often cheated and were aggressive,  but the honest poor didn't stand a chance."

"We had our back to Titanic and went to sleep. The next morning, I saw Carpathia on the horizon. I was hauled abord in a burlap bag. I thought it was extremely incorrect to be in a burlap bag!" 

Michel Navratil

Michel went to university where he married a fellow student in 1933, he went on to earn his doctorate, becoming a professor of psychology.

Marcelle Caretto, the mother of Michel Jr. and Edmond, died in 1963.

In 1987, he returned to the U.S. for the first time since 1912 to mark the 75th anniversary of the sinking.

The last living male survivor, Michel lived in Montpellier, near Nice France.

 On 27 August 1996, Mr Navratil visited his father's grave for the first time in 84 years.

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.

Michel Navratil died on 30 January 2001 at the age of 92.

Louise Laroche & the Story of the Only Black Family on the Titanic

THE LAROCHE FAMILY

On the 106^th anniversary of the Sinking of The Titanic in April 1912 it seems appropriate to publish a blog entry concerning the lives of the 4 members of the Laroche Family who were passengers on that fateful maiden voyage. To my knowledge this is a story that has not been told in the myriad of books, films, documentaries and TV programmes that have catered to the public fascination with Titanic over the last 100 years. The La Roche family are listed on the Encyclopaedia Titanica website and their names appear in official ships records, so their story is certainly not just another Titanic myth but neither is it one that many people are aware of today - that needs to change.

Only a handful of people who were aboard the Titanic in 1912 were still living at the end of 20th century and all of them had been children at the time of the disaster. Frenchwoman Louise Laroche was one of the very last of the survivors, living to the age of 87 and passing away in January 1998.

LOUISE LAROCHE RETURNS TO CHERBOUG

Three years earlier in March 1995, Louise Laroche had stepped aboard the SS Nomadic for the very first time since 1912 when it had carried her and her family to the Titanic from the port of Cherbourg. That same year, Louise was also present as the Titanic Historical Society dedicated a stone marker in Cherbourg commemorating Titanic passengers who sailed from its port. 

Louise La Roche was born on 2 July 1910 in Paris and had an older sister called Simonne Marie Anne Andrée La Roche. 

Their French born mother Juliette Marie Louise Lafargue was the daughter of a widowed Parisian wine merchant. 

Juliette had married her husband Joseph Philippe Lemercier LaRoche in 1908 at her father’s house in Villejuif. Joseph Laroche's father had been a French Army Captain but his mother was a dark skinned Haitian. Juliette’s father seemed to have no objection to the interracial marriage and openly welcomed his black son-in-law into the family. 

In 1912 the Laroche Family were living with Juliette’s father. Joseph Laroche was a well-educated gentleman who spoke both English and French fluently; he had obtained a degree and he was a qualified Engineer. Although Laroche worked briefly on the Paris Metro, he did not have much luck finding well paid work in France and this was mainly due to his mixed heritage and the racial discrimination he faced. 

LOUISE & SIMMONE LAROCHE

Simonne's birth had gone smoothly, but  Louise had been born premature and had suffered a variety of medical problems in childhood putting an extra strain on the family. They  needed more money to pay for Louise’s medical bills and Joseph did not want to rely on his father-in-law’s good will and hospitality forever. He decided to return to his mother’s birthplace in Haiti to find a better-paying engineering job and the move was originally planned for 1913.

As someone of white French and black Haitian parentage, Joseph Laroche had grown up among the more privileged classes in Haiti and received much of his early education from private tutors.  He had decided on a career in engineering at the age of 15, and he travelled to Beauvais, France with his private teacher Monsignor Kersuzan, who was the Lord Bishop of Haiti.  He attended classes in Beauvais and Lille and received his certificate in engineering in 1907 before meeting and marrying his French wife. 

In March 1912, Juliette discovered that she was pregnant with her 3^rd child and Joseph wanted this baby to be born in Haiti. Juliette did not want to leave her elderly father but agreed it was the right move for their growing family. She and Joseph decided to leave before her pregnancy became too far advanced for travel. 

Joseph’s mother back in Haiti bought them steamship tickets on the ship La France as a present, but the line’s strict policy regarding children meant that their daughters would not be permitted to dine with them and would have to remain in the nursery at mealtimes. As young parents, Joseph and Juliette were very family orientated, and for this reason, they exchanged their 1^st Class Tickets on the S.S. France for 2^nd class tickets on the Titanic.

On sailing day the sky was clear. In the early hours Joseph, Juliette, Simonne and Louise left the family home and took the train to Paris. The boat train was already loading passengers at Gare Saint-Lazare. It was there, in the Cour de Rome, that the Laroche family were waiting to boarding the train with a friend, Monsieur Renard, who had bought a balloon for each girl. Louise, sitting in her pram in the sunshine was laughing when the string suddenly left her hand and flew away. Louise cried and kind Monsieur Renard ran to the next balloon seller to buy her another. When it was time to board the train they all waved their last good-bye to Monsuier Renard. 

The trip from Paris to Cherbourg by train was long; the girls were excited and could not sleep. In the same carriage was a young boy called Andre Mallet. Andre's parents were boarding Titanic in Cherbourg, to go to Montreal in Canada. The Mallets were also traveling second class like the Laroches.  By the time the train stopped at the maritime terminal at 4:00 PM, the two families had become well acquainted and their common experience made them feel much closer to each other. While both the husbands spoke English as well as French, their wives did not.

Luggage was taken from the train and brought to the quay. Because of her size large liners like Titanic anchored in the harbour off Grande Rade near Fort de l'Ouest. Nomadic and Traffic, the White Star's tenders carried passengers from the terminal to the liner. Traffic transported luggage and third class passengers while Nomadic carried first and second class. 

TITANIC LEAVING CHERBORG

On April 10, 1912, The Laroche family boarded the tenders at 5:30 PM ready to join Titanic but the liner was late. There was talk of an incident in Southampton during her departure, where there was a near collision with the liner New York. The liner finally appeared on the horizon and neared Passe de l'Ouest where she anchored about 6:30 PM. 

 Traffic moored alongside the Titanic. Twenty-two cross-channel passengers disembarked from Titanic while mail and additional goods were taken aboard. Then Nomadic then brought 274 passengers, including the Mallets and Laroches, and the unloading did not take more than twenty minutes.

The Laroche family were looking forward to their voyage. A crowd of onlookers assembled on the jetty to admire The Titanic’s beautiful silhouette, and a band played La Marseillaise. It was dark when Titanic, her rows of portholes glowing with light left. She had not spent more than two hours in Cherbourg, and her next stop was Queenstown, Ireland.

In a letter written by Juliette Laroche to her father, dated April 11, 1912 and sent from Queenstown, she described the family's quarters: 

Juliette's letter from the Titanic

Dear Pappa, I have just been told that we are going to stop in a moment, so I take this opportunity to drop you a few lines and tell you about us. We boarded the Titanic last evening at 7:00. If you could see this monster, our tender looked like a fly compared to her. The arrangements could not be more comfortable. We have two bunks in our cabin, and the two babies sleep on a sofa that converts into a bed. One is at the head, the other at the bottom. A board put before them prevents them from falling. They're as well, if not better, than in their beds.

The boat set out when we were eating and we could not believe she was moving: we are less shaken than in a train. We just feel a slight trepidation. The girls ate well last night. They only took a nap in the whole night and the chime of the bell announcing breakfast woke them up. Louise laughed a lot at it. At the moment they are strolling on the enclosed deck with Joseph, Louise is in her pram, and Simonne is pushing her. They already have become acquainted with people we made the trip from Paris with a gentleman and his lady and their little boy too, who is the same age as Louise.

I think they are the only other French people on the boat, so we sat at the same table so that we could chat together. Simonne was so funny - she was playing with a young English girl who had lent her a doll. My Simonne was having a great conversation with her, but the girl did not understand a single word. People on board are very nice. Yesterday, they both were running after a gentleman who had given them chocolates.

This morning I tried to count all the children on the boat. In second class only, I am sure that there are more than twenty. There is a small family with four children, they remind me of my Uncle's. The youngest looks very much like fat Marcelle. I am writing from the reading room: there is a concert in here, near me, one violin, two cellos, and one piano.

 Up to now, I have not felt seasick. I hope it will go on this way. The sea is very smooth, the weather is wonderful. If you could see how big this ship is! One can hardly find the way back to one's cabin in the number of corridors. I will stop here now for I believe we are going to put in and I wouldn't like to miss the next mail. Once again, thank you my dear Pappa for all your marks of bounty towards us, and receive all the warmest kisses from your loving daughter, Juliette.

 P.S Warmly kiss for us all our dear Grand Mother, Maurice, Marguerite, and Madeleine. Little Simonne and Louise kiss their good Grand Father. They had just their dresses on this morning when they wanted to go and see you.

ON BOARD TITANIC

On the fateful morning of April 14th, 1912, the Laroche family ate a hearty breakfast and joined many of the other Titanic passengers at the Sunday church services. Other passengers relaxed in the steamy Turkish Bath , some strolled on the decks or sipped coffee and expensive teas in the Cafe Parisien, while the gentlemen enjoyed fine wine and cigars in the smoking room and had an altogether wonderful day on the luxurious unsinkable sea liner.

During the day, Laroche, his wife Juliette and their two young daughters were sometimes the object of rude stares from a handful of other passengers, The covert racism on board the ocean liner was not limited solely to the La Roche Family but was freely extended to Irish, Italian and other non-white passengers as well.

GRAND STAIRCASE OF TITANIC

Victor Gaitan Andrea Giglio, the Liverpool born son of an Italian cotton merchant and his Egyptian wife, was employed by one of America's richest men as a valet, secretary and personal assistant. He was travelling with Benjamin Guggenhiem, his Mistress and a chauffeur on board the Titanic. Giglio, would have also stood out amongst the 1st class passengers, but his position as a “servant” would not have disturbed the status quo as much as Joseph and his family’s presence did. 

The first-class passengers were some of the richest people in the world, the creme de la creme of white Anglo-American society who flaunted their wealth prominently and came from families with famous names such as Astor. The second-class passengers were mainly middle class business men, managers, and highly skilled workers just like Joseph. Third-class passengers  were primarily working class English, Irish, European and Russian immigrants in search of a better life in America - or they were domestic servants employed by the first class passengers. 

2ND CLASS CABIN ON TITANIC

Whilst the Laroche family did not have first- class reservations, Joseph Laroche considered himself a highly respectable man, who had every right to be on board. Their cabin was a large, spacious room with panelling in sycamore and was comparable to first-class accommodations on any other sea liners of the day. The couple also shared many of the things enjoyed by the first class passengers, including dining in the same saloon - with their daughters - and socialising with some of their fellow passengers on deck. 

Their second-class tickets, however, did not shield them from the whispered insult.

The fact that Laroche was a black man with a white wife and mixed race children would have been a source of on board gossip between some the wealthier passengers. The Laroche family also encountered several stares from members of the crew, despite their obvious gentility. What the other passengers and crew didn’t know was that Joseph Laroche was descended from a very wealthy Haitian Family who were considered royalty on the Caribbean Island of Haiti – and Joseph was actually the nephew of the President of Haiti.

JEAN JACQUES DESSALINES

Joseph Laroche’s maternal 2 x Great Grandfather was Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who was regarded as one of the founding fathers of the country. He was leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti in 1805. Initially appointed governor-general, Dessalines was later named Emperor Jacques I of Haiti until being assassinated a year later in 1806.

Born into slavery as Jean-Jacques Duclos on the Cormier plantation near Grande-Riviere-du-Nord,  His father had adopted the surname from his owner Henri Duclose. Working in the sugarcane fields as a labourer, Jean-Jaques rose to the rank of foreman and worked on Duclos's plantation until he was about 30 years old. He was then bought by a free black man named Dessalines, who assigned his own surname to him. From then on he was called Jean-Jacques Dessalines and kept this name in freedom. He worked for his new master for about three years, until the slave uprising of 1791, which he became a leader of. 

Dessalines became increasingly embittered toward both the whites and the mixed-race residents of Haiti during the years of fighting the revolution against the French, British and Spanish. After becoming Governor in 1804, he took his old black master back into his house and gave him a job in an ironic turn of events.

1804 HAITIAN MASSACRE

Dessalines tried hard to keep the sugar industry and plantations running and producing without resorting to slavery but he did not trust the white French people. Between February and April 1804, he had the white Haitian minority killed by ordering the 1804 Haiti Massacre. Dessalines declared Haiti an all-black nation and forbade whites from owning any property or land there. This resulted in the deaths of between 3,000 and 5,000 white people of all ages and genders.

The exact circumstances of Dessalines death are uncertain. Some historians claim that he was killed after a meeting to negotiate the power and the future of Haiti. Some reports say that he was arrested and was dealt a deadly blow to the head; another report says he was ambushed and brutally attacked by his own men in the street. 

He was shot twice and hit once. Then, his head was split open by a sabre's blow and he was finally stabbed three times with a dagger, with the crowd shouting "the tyrant is killed". The mob desecrated and disfigured his remains, which were abandoned on Government Square. There was a lot of resistance to providing him with a proper burial; but, Dédée Bazile, a black woman from a humble background, took the mutilated body of the Emperor and buried it. A monument at the northern entrance of the Haitian capital marks the place where the Emperor was killed.

For the remainder of the 19th century, Dessalines was generally reviled by generations of Haitians for his autocratic ways. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, he began to be reassessed as an icon of Haitian nationalism. The national anthem of Haiti, "La Dessalinienne", written in 1903, was named in his honour.

CINCINNATUS LECONTE

Dessalines was the great-grandfather of Cincinnatus Leconte who served as President of Haiti from 1911 to August 1912 and Leconte was the Uncle of Joseph Laroche – the only man of black African decent to perish on the Titanic. 

Leconte, who was a lawyer by trade, had served as minister of the interior but was forced into exile in Jamaica after a 1908 revolt. Returning from exile in 1911, Leconte gathered a large military force. and led the revolution that ousted President Simon on 7 August 1911. Leconte was unanimously elected president of Haiti by Congress on 14 August 1911 with a seven-year term. His salary was set at $24,000 a year so he would have been more than able to offer financial help to his nephew, Joseph Laroche.

Upon attaining the presidency he instituted a number of reforms: paving streets, increasing teacher pay, installing telephone lines, and decreasing the size of the army. it was "generally admitted" that Leconte's administration was "the ablest and the cleanest government Haiti has had in forty years." Zora Neale Hurston, writing in the 1930s after extensive research in Haiti, pointed out that Leconte was "credited with beginning numerous reforms and generally taking positive steps."

When Joseph Leroche went to bed in his cabin on the Titanic on that fateful night in 1912, he must have been thinking that his good political and family connections would ensure his families future security in Haiti.  

Shortly after the RMS Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, a steward came into their cabin and told the Laroche family to put on their life jackets. Joseph woke Juliette up and told her that the ship had suffered an accident. He put all of their valuables and money in his coat pocket, and then he and his wife carried each of their sleeping daughters to the ship's top deck. A steward guided the family towards the lifeboats. Juliette, who spoke no English, was very confused about what was going on, and just followed her husband. 

 At 12:25 am the order was given to begin loading women and children into the lifeboats.

On deck, Joseph Laroche said goodbye to his pregnant wife and his two young daughters and placed his coat the around Juliette’s shoulders. Unfortunately, the coat with all she owned was later stolen. Laroche then bravely declared, as his family were lowered into the lifeboat, “I’ll get another boat”. He bid his wife farewell, saying, “God be with you. I’ll see you in New York”. 

The last lifeboat departed from the ship at 2:05 am

NEWS OF TITANIC DISASTER HITS PRESS

At approximately 2:20 am – two hours and forty minutes after the initial collision with the iceberg – the ship shuddered then broke in two and slowly sunk into the ocean’s depths. More than two-thirds of its 2,227 passengers, Joseph Laroche among them, were still on board. The luxury ocean liner was equipped with only enough lifeboats for less than one-third of its passengers

 Joseph Laroche, the 26-year-old black Haitian husband, father of two, and skilled engineer became one of the many victims of the disaster. His body, along with many others, was never recovered.

LOUISE AND SIMMONE ON CARPATHIA

The first recollections of April 15th, 1912 for Louise Laroche and her sister Simonne were of the Cunard Carpathia, when they were hauled up on deck in bags. Simonne remembered how frightening it had been and the images stayed with her for life. Their mother already knew that Joseph had drowned. No other ship picked up any lifeboats where he might have been found.

With two fatherless daughters, pregnant, and unable to speak English, she must have felt very alone and frightened. A few words spoken among the survivors located Madame Antoinette Mallet who had been saved with her son Andre but she too had lost her husband. The two women now shared the common ordeal as widows.

A big problem that Titanic survivors faced was a lack of linen -- Carpathia was unable to provide enough for everyone. Juliette needed them to make diapers for the babies; the stewardesses would not give her any since there were none to spare. However, necessity being the mother of invention, Juliette found a way. At the end of each meal she sat on napkins and with what she was able to conceal, she used them for her girls.

TITANIC SURVIVORS ON CARPATHIA

After they were rescued, neither Madame Mallet nor Juliette Laroche could remember what number lifeboat they had escaped in. The only detail Juliette remembered was that in her boat a countess or someone with a title was among those who rowed all night long.Survivor Noël Leslie, Countess of Rothes, escaped in a lifeboat , so it is very likely that Juliette, Simonne and Louise Laroche were also with her .All Juliette could recall was that the boat had icy water in the bottom and her feet were badly frozen.

TITANIC SURVIVORS IN NEW YORK

On April 18 after a crossing in foggy weather, Carpathia reached New York. In pouring rain, the survivors disembarked. Juliette and the girls were directed to a hospital where her frozen feet were treated. The loss of her husband, personal belongings, combined with pain and fright and the trauma she had survived made her cancel continuing on to Haiti.

Alone in New York with her two small children, Juliette decided to return to the familiarity of France. Her Passage home was made on the liner, Chicago, because she was a French ship. Juliet Laroche and her daughters were back in Le Havre in May and then went home to her father in Villejuif. It was there in December 1912 that Juliette gave birth to her son who she named Joseph, in honour of his late father. Shortly after the disaster, the White Star Line issued a public apology for the racism suffered by some of the Titanic's victims and survivors.

  

Two years later the First World War erupted in Europe. It ruined Julliette's father's winery and thrust Juliette and her family into poverty.

PRESIDENT LECONTE - JOSEPH'S UNCLE

It was fortunate that Juliette Laroche and her daughters did not end up living in Haiti as the political situation there was far from stable. Despite being elected to a seven-year term as President, Joseph Laroches’s Uncle’s time in office was short lived. On 8 August 1912, just a few months after his nephews tragic death on the Titanic, a violent explosion destroyed the National Palace, killing the president and several hundred soldiers. An Associated Press report at the time noted:

So great was the force of the explosion, that a number of small cannon, fragments of iron and shell were thrown long distances in all directions, and many of the palace attendants were killed. Every house in the city was shaken violently and the entire population, greatly alarmed, rushed into the street.

A 1912 account of the explosion reported that an "accidental ignition of ammunition stores caused the death of General Cincinnatus Leconte,” while a 1927 article later deemed his death an "assassination." Oral histories circulating in Haiti—some of which were chronicled by Hurston in the 1930s in her book Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica—differed significantly from most written accounts. As Hurston explained, 

 "The history books all say Cincinnatus Leconte died in the explosion that destroyed the palace, but the people do not tell it that way. Not one person, high or low, ever told me that Leconte was killed by the explosion. It is generally accepted that the destruction of the palace was to cover up the fact that the President was already dead by violence." 

According to Hurston there were "many reasons given for the alleged assassination", but the main actors in the supposed plot were men who "were ambitious and stood to gain political power...by the death of President Leconte."

Julliette’s father, Monsieur Lafargue still had the house at 131 Grande Rue. It was rented by the year until the death of the owners who lived in Saint-Jean-les-Deux-Jumeaux, a tiny village a few kilometers east of Villejuif. At age 50, his wine business had been decimated by the war, and he was not able to support Juliette and his granddaughters. It was he who urged his daughter to sue the White Star Line for the losses she had suffered. 

After several years and much difficulty she received a settlement of 150,000 francs in 1918 that provided her with the opportunity to start a new for her and her children. She set up a small business in a spare room in the house dyeing cloth and making crafts. When her father passed away, Juliette carried on living at the house

In 1920, Joseph's Haitian mother paid a visit to her French daughter-in-law and her three grandchildren for the first and only time, but the visit didn't go well. She treated them as if they were foreigners rather than family and she returned to Haiti, never to see them again. 

LETTER FROM WHITE STAR LINE REGARDING LAROCHE FAMILY

In 1932, a journalist attempted to interview Juliette about her experiences on the Titanic but she refused to speak to him. Juliette's only known concession to recalling the Titanic was a reunion meeting with another survivor, a Miss Edith Russell. That reunion took place at the Claridge Hotel in Paris. After reminiscing together, the two became good friends and every year on April 15th - the anniversary of Joseph’s tragic death - Juliette would receive a special gift from Edith, a bottle of perfume or a box of chocolates.

LOUISE LAROCHE

Although she was now able to support her family, the Titanic tragedy scarred Juliette for life. Her love for her late husband never waned, she never remarried and she remained in silent fear of losing any more of her family. Of her children, only her son married and had two sons and a daughter. Both Louise and Simonne remained spinsters all of their lives.

In 1980, Juliette Laroche – who was  paralysed on the right side – died sixty-eight years after the death of her husband. She was buried in a grave bearing a tombstone which reads ‘Juliette Laroche, 1889-1980, wife of Joseph Laroche, lost at sea RMS Titanic, April 15th, 1912’.

Her son Joseph Laroche Jr died in 1987 but his wife Claudine, and his sister Louise lived together in the family home until January 1998, when Louise died. 

The Laroche grandchildren have held steadfast to the family tradition of never discussing the Titanic disaster. The story has always been known by a handful of Titanic historians but has not been discussed until recently. 

Marlie Alberts’ stepmother was reading Ebony Mgazine in a Washington, D.C., hair salon in August 2000 when she came across an article about the Titanic. There, she read about Joseph Laroche, the Haitian engineer who changed tickets at the last minute to board the Titanic. There, she also learned that Laroche was the only black man among the Titanic’s passengers. Then she saw his photograph.

She sneaked the magazine home and showed her husband, a Haitian-born cabdriver. He immediately called his daughter Marli, in Huntington Beach. “He could’ve been my father’s twin,” Marlie says of the magazine photo she saw of Joseph Laroche in August 2000. “Same pose, same profile, same piercing eyes.”

 

Her father, Robert Richard, explained that his parents had never married but that his father’s last name was Laroche. Richard gave his daughter three generations of family names in Haiti. The thought of being related in some way to the Titanic’s only black family was reassuring to Marlie. She went on ancestry websites, punched in names and made contact with Christina Schutt – a relative of Joseph Laroche who lived in Paris.

“I don’t speak French and she didn’t speak much English,” Alberts says. “But we agreed to meet at a Virgin Records store on the Champs-Élysées.”

 

The 2001 interview between Alberts and Christina Schutt in Paris didn’t go well because they couldn’t speak the same language, but Alberts learned of Claudine Laroche, widow of Joseph Laroche Jr., who’d survived the Titanic disaster in his mother’s womb. So that November, Alberts returned to Paris – with a translator this time – to meet Claudine in person.

“Claudine kept telling me how much my father looked like her husband’s father,” Alberts says. “She couldn’t believe it.” It was there that Alberts also saw a family tree tracing Joseph Laroche’s Haitian roots back to the same people she had discovered.

In James Cameron’s blockbuster movie “Titanic" there is a scene in which a woman in a black dress jumps toward a lifeboat being lowered and, terrified, she misses. The moment is historically accurate, except for one detail: Sitting in that very lifeboat was Juliette Laroche with her 2 daughters. 

Some feel it’s strange that Cameron never showed the Laroches in his movie – the second-highest-grossing film of all time – but it follows historical precedence.

“For years, all the Titanic stories that came out said there were no black people on the Titanic,” says one Titanic historian.

 In her book “Titanic, Women and Children First,” Judith Geller says the same thing. “It’s strange that nowhere in the copious 1912 press descriptions of the ship and the interviews with the survivors was the presence of a black family among the passengers ever mentioned,”  

In one press piece (opposite) the family are mentioned and have been drawn by an artist, but strangley Joseph appears to be white. On the Carpathia's record of Victims, Joseph Laroche's name appears but the only detail that has been left blank is his nationality. There is no mention of him being Haitian or black. Anyone researching the records would have wrongly assumed from his name and port of departure, that he was white and french.

It wasn’t until 1995 that something caused this to change. A new French member of the Titanic Historical Society, Olivier Mendez, had gone to interview Louise Laroche and her sister-in-law Claudine at their home. Louise had been an Honourable Member of Society from the very beginning but since she could not speak English, correspondence with her over the years had been very difficult. 

Claudine provided Oliver Mendez with genealogical and family history information going back over 100 years and Louise was able to confirm her father’s Haitian ancestry and finally tell his story.  Olivier Mendez and the Massachusetts-based Titanic Historical Society are credited with being the first historians to uncover this new information about Laroche, his distinguished black ancestry, and his official status as the only man of Haitan African decent on the Titanic.

Louise Larouche’s account was originally published in the Titanic Commutator Magazine in 1995 and word slowly spread that a black family had been on the Titanic. In 2000 an article by Sabrina L. Miller entitled "Untold Story Of The Titanic," which appeared in the Chicago Tribune, and  Zondra Hughes’ feature, "What Happened To the Only Black Family On The Titanic?" which was published in Ebony Magazine in June, 2000 brought the story to the public’s attention.

Marlie Alberts started writing her screenplay about the La Roche Family by flashlight as her daughter, Malkiah, then 8, slept next to her. ““ It’s a big story that needs to be told. I have to leave a legacy for my daughter to know her background.”. Los Angeles comedian and writer Warren Durso later collaborated with her on the writing. Alberts formed a production company with a New York business partner to produce a TV mini series or movie. She chased her dream, news stories about her were told in Chicago, Cleveland and Southern California, but sadly no film ever surfaced. 

LaRoche, a three-act opera by Atlanta composer Sharon J. Willis, was part of the 2003 National Black Arts Festival, premiering at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center on July 18 of that year. 

A lovely short Youtube Video also tells Joseph’s Story - and this is where I first became aware of it and wanted to find out more:

Author W. Mae Kent

Budding author W. Mae Kent watched the 1997 "Titanic" movie and the film captured her imagination but she too wondered if there had been any black victims of the disaster. A month or so later, Kent was listening to the radio on her drive to work when she heard a little-known black history fact: Joseph Phillipe Lemercier Laroche was the only black passenger aboard that ill-fated vessel.

It took her 12 years to write, but Kent published her first book in 2009. She called the novel "Titanic: The Untold Story." Kent's work is believed to be the only fictional book based on the fact that a black man was on the Titanic.

TITANIC: THE UNTOLD STORY

Kent found the Ebony magazine article on Laroche. She spent months just researching Laroche and kept coming across the same lack of information. When Kent sat down to write her fictional book, she based her main protagonist, Nathan Badeau Legarde, on Laroche. About 50 percent of Kent's fictional story is true. When Kent wrote her book, she made Legarde much more socially outgoing than Laroche would have been. She switched Haiti to to New Orleans and included other real-life Titanic passengers in her book, including Thomas Andrews Jr., Captain Edward J. Smith and American socialite Molly Brown.

Kent believes it's important that many more people know that a black man died on the Titanic.

"The reason, he (Laroche) wasn't represented in the Titanic movie – and has been practically whitewashed out of history is that people of colour weren't considered to have class no matter how rich or well educated they were," said Kent, who quoted the Bible with the words "My people perish for lack of knowledge. Black people don't know our history well enough. ... When all you know is negative, it makes you feel less than," she said.