“My father was in the Resistance here…” The Tarn childhood of Nicola Sirkis, singer from Indochina

Friday 17th January 2025 11:44 AM

the essential
If he didn’t mention it, when he came to ignite Pause Guitare in 2023, the leader of the group Indochine, Nicola Sirkis, knows the Tarn well. As a child, he came there on vacation. His father had a house in Segala, a souvenir of the maquis where he had fought. We followed in the footsteps of this Tarn childhood.

“During a concert in Bordeaux, Nicola Sirkis asked if there were any Tarnais in the audience,” says Dominique Planes, a young retiree from Lavaur. Why would the singer and guitarist of the group Indochine be interested in the homeland of Jaurès? We have to go back to the German Occupation to find the explanation.

“My father was in the Resistance here. He was of Russian origin. He arrived at the start of the war from a region surrendered to Germany following the German-Soviet pact. He fled and, barely in France, he entered a network fighting against the occupier”, confided Nicola Sirkis, in 2014, in our columns, after an Indochina concert in Albi. And it was in the Tarn that he fought. Enough to form strong links with the territory. “He then wanted to buy a farm near Albi, in the very maquis where he had operated. In the 1960s and 70s, we spent all our childhood holidays in Alban,” continues the singer.

Nicola Sirkis, singer from Indochina, spent his vacation in Tarn
DDM – EMILIE CAYRE

Friend of the former mayor

We went looking for this house. It was not an easy thing. Because, in Ségala, few people remember the presence of the Sirkis family more than half a century ago. It is precisely in Paulinet, 15 kilometers from Alban, that we will find this residence set back inland and surrounded by around thirty hectares of nature, grass and silence.

Surrounded by meadows, groves and silence, the house is a haven of peace.
DDM – RB.

Well camouflaged in a grove, out of sight, the place, uninhabited when we came, is fenced and well maintained. It would now belong to the Albigensians. “The closest neighbor, a mayor of the village, knew Nicola well. He often spoke about her in the municipal council. They had established good relations,” informs a former elected official from Paulinet. Unfortunately, Damien Chamayou, the former mayor, died in July 2024. His farm is one kilometer from that of the Sirkis. “When we inaugurated the village square, he tried to invite her to the ceremony,” remembers a resident. She is one of the rare people to know of the presence of this showbiz star in this village. Moreover, none of them personally met him. It must be said that the vacation spot is atypical for this child born in the Paris region and whose family roots are in Moselle.

A father in the Resistance

Back in 1933, Nicola’s father, Jean Sirkis (real name Sirchis), of Jewish origin, fled the rise of anti-Semitism in Chișinău, capital of Bessarabia and then Moldova, to settle in Toulouse. Under the Vichy regime and the Nazi occupation, Jews were hunted down and deported. Jean Sirchis narrowly escapes a roundup. He is also prohibited from continuing his studies at the Toulouse School of Chemistry. At the end of 1943, with a few comrades, they decided to fight Pétain and the Nazi occupiers.

Refuge at Paulinet

They then joined the resistance, well established in the Tarn department. Initially, they found refuge very close to Paulinet, at a place called Biques.

At a place called Biques, in Paulinet, there was the farm where Nicola Sirkis’ father took refuge during the war.
DR – Shoah Memorial.

His group, called “Blue-White”, colors of the future State of Israel, will then join the maquis of the Secret Army (AS), at the Martinou jasse in Lacaune. In August 1944, he participated in the liberation of Toulouse. This time, at the age of 17-18, will forever mark Jean Sirchis, so much so that, later, he bought a second home in Paulinet, just a few hundred meters from his refuge during the war. She will bring joy to Nicola and her brothers’ summer vacation.