Ilyās Samaan was passenger on the Titanic.
Background[]
Ilyās Samaan was born in Syria in the town of Hardīn. He was the son of Ḥannā Ilyās Samaan who was married to a Syrian woman whose name is not known. This woman gave birth to Ilyās somewhere in the 1890s. Following Ilyās was a brother named Youssif. The family lived in a part of Syria that is now Lebanon since 1920, but before, was taken by the Turkish Empire.
Many years later, his brother had a wife who soon left for America and she established herself in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. There, she got a hold of a house in the vicinity of her brothers. In the Spring of 1912, Youssif wanted to go to her and felt it was best for Ilyas and father Ḥannā to be with him as to have a large family in Wilkes-Barre. Youssif’s children had to be brought later and remained in Hardīn when their journey began. The Samaans were not alone as they had the company of others from Hardīn, who had Wilkes-Barre as their destination as well.
For the long journey across the counry to the port of Beirut, they needed donkeys. Some days later, they were at the sea and a ship could take them over to France. The ship docked in Marseilles where the people underwent routinairy checks to see if they couldn’t contage anyone. This wasn’t the case so the next part of the trip was on a train to Paris. In Paris, they would go further north to finally reach Cherbourg, another port where a large steamer, would soon come to get more passengers.
Titanic[]
Ilyās and his family were Third Class passengers of the RMS Titanic. They went onto Titanic via a tender in the evening of April 10. Soon, Titanic was ready for the next part of her Maiden Voyage.
What Ilyās and the others did during the crossing is something left to imagine as details are missing. What is known however, is that Titanic’s passage was turned on its head after an iceberg collision occured on the night of April 14. It was late and 20 minutes before midnight, when she struck the berg on her starboard side. It’s not apparant why, but the lookouts couldn’t see the iceberg coming until it was too late to alter Titanic’s course enough to get past unscatched. The result was now that the ship of dreams had to stop as she was wounded. Crevices had appeared in the steel plates underneath the water line. This damage proved to be fatal. The water came in fast.
On April 15, the Titanic’s captain stood for a tough choice. He had to save as many lives, as Thomas Andrews had just apprised him that the way Titanic was hit, she could not survive and would sink very soon. The order came just after midnight to launch the lifeboats.
Ilyās, Youssif and their father Ḥannā were not able to board a lifeboat. There weren’t enough boats and hundreds of people were left behind to await Titanic’s final moments, which came at 2:20 A.M after she broke in two. The ship foundered and left many passengers in the ocean to die from hypothermia. The three men found their watery grave and no traces would be left of their bodies.