They chose to die together on the Titanic. A reminder of their love story sold for a record amount

<i>Phil Yeomans/Shutterstock via CNN Newsource</i><br/>Isidor and Ida Straus were travelling home from their native Germany to the US when the luxury ocean liner hit an iceberg and sank.

By CNN Newsource

November 21, 2025 8:11 AM

Published November 25, 2025 2:35 AM

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN

(CNN) — Isidor and Ida Straus are remembered as two of the highest-profile victims of the Titanic disaster, and among the few first-class passengers to perish.

The pair, who were depicted in James Cameron’s Oscar-winning 1997 movie “Titanic,” were offered seats in one of the lifeboats but refused to be separated.

The body of Isidor, who co-owned the New York department store Macy’s, was later recovered. His wife’s was never found. Now, well over a century after the world’s most famous maritime disaster, the gold pocket watch Isidor was wearing at the time has sold at auction for a record amount.

At a sale in England on Saturday, the historic timepiece fetched £1.78 million ($2.34 million), becoming the most valuable piece of Titanic memorabilia ever.

The record was previously held by another gold watch — one belonging to John Jacob Astor IV, the richest man aboard the Titanic, which sold for £1.175 million ($1.485 million) in April 2024.

Isidor’s watch was recovered from his body and returned to the couple’s son Jesse. Ida is memorialized on her husband’s grave in New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery.

The watch is engraved with Isidor’s initials and the date February 6, 1888 — the date of his 43rd birthday and the year he and his brother Nathan became full partners in Macy’s.

Described by auction house Henry Aldridge & Son, which handled the sale, as “one of the most important and iconic Titanic items ever to be offered for sale,” the watch was passed down the generations of the family before coming up for sale.

In 1997’s “Titanic,” the Strauses, played by Lew Palter and Elsa Raven, were portrayed clutching each other on a bed as the ship went down. In reality the couple, who were travelling home to the United States from their native Germany, were last seen by survivors standing together on deck, holding hands, before they were swept overboard by a wave.

The pair had been directed to lifeboat eight, but Isidor had refused to board while there were younger men barred from boarding, according to documents from the UK’s National Archives. His wife is then said to have also refused, saying: “Where you go, I go.”

Lisa Respers France contributed to this report.