rmstitanic

...the desperation is coming through this document

tedesco57 Sadly, the following telegrams are even more palpable, reading: 'We have struck iceberg and sinking please tell Captain to come' and 'Women and children in boats cannot last much longer'.

Terse and to the point.

is this a real picture?... to me the boat and the people on it look somehow hand made...

Yes its real. You have to remember that the Carpathia was In very frigid waters. The captain of of the Carpathia didn't have any heating systems on because the steam was needed to get to the Titanic. You are looking at a condensation blur. The film was glass. Then there is the breath of the person taking to picture. You can see the breath on the top of the picture. Looks like fog.

If you enlarge it, it actually looks like someone sketched in features on some of the faces and outlined other parts. It also looks like their is a fingerprint on the image, center, bottom

Looks like someone retouch the picture using a pen or something over vanished parts drawing the shadows.

Looks retouched to me too. No big deal. It porbably had to be printed in a newspaper or magazine with a photo printing process without today's definition - so they needed to outline the important parts.

A comprehensive biography can be accessed online at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Marcel_Navratil

Their real names were Michel and Edmond Navratil, ages 2 and 4. The boys had been abducted from France by their father, who drowned when the Titanic went down. Their mother later learned of their fate, and sailed to New York to claim them and take them back to France. Michel, the oldest, lived to age 92. More data, including a link to a Wikipedia story, in the comments under this photo: www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/2535973345/ Another Bain/LOC photo of the tiny Titanic survivors:

The younger child is holding a miniature ship! That had better not be a replica of the Titanic, that would be so wrong...