Christian Birocheau, memory of Deux-Sèvres and the Marais Poitevin

Carelessly placed on Christian Birocheau's desk, an anti-Jewish leaflet, bearing the yellow star. “It is a document which belonged to a postman from Saint-Georges-de-Rex, during the Second World War, reports the retiree. On orders from the Germans, he was supposed to deliver a whole box of them to the mailboxes in his town, but he never did. His daughter found the box in his attic after his death. »

“There are a whole bunch of little treasures in people”

Since 2006, the septuagenarian has been collecting and scanning old photos and documents that families in Deux-Sèvres and elsewhere are willing to lend him, with the idea of ​​contributing to “safeguarding the memory of our villages”. “There are a whole lot of little treasures in people. I realized that it was necessary to preserve this heritage by coming across photos and birth certificates, at the recycling center »explains this trained baker. The fruit of his labor is a hard drive, as thick as a brick. Inside, more than 100,000 classified files, of which nearly 30,000 concern its commune alone, Le Vanneau-Irleau.

Like a journey through time, we navigate between portraits of anonymous people, scenes from past daily life, but also historical testimonies. For example, one photograph immortalizes the cleaning of the port of Vanneau by Nazi soldiers in 1944. In another, dated June 1963, Charles de Gaulle shakes hands with Jacques Fouchier, then mayor of Saint-Maixent.

We linger with amusement on a photo from the 1990s, where a boat surveys green Venice with five goats on board and… Christian Birocheau, with an extra mustache and a few years younger. “For five years, I took my goats to the meadow by boat every day at set times, so that people from the village could come and see us pass by.he says. For the record, I discovered by chance in 2021 that this photo was hanging in the room of a Swiss candidate from Love is in the meadow ! ».

Deux-Sévrien has his attic full of anecdotes, filled with “the life of the people of the Marais”. “I keep everything”concedes this inveterate nostalgic. As a child, he accompanied his grandparents “touring the elders” du Vanneau-Irleau, sitting in the back seat of the family Citroën 2 CV.

Amazing encounters

His passion for genealogy, which he got from his mother, led him to meet the descendants of Jacques Béchillon, lord of Irleau and mayor of Niort in 1539. Or, even more surprising, to reveal to Argentinians their kinship with a family of winegrowers in the Marais, the Métayers, emigrated to America at the time of the phylloxera crisis, in the 19^e century.

A good player, the retiree has made arrangements so that after his death, a copy of his “treasures” goes to the departmental archives of Deux-Sèvres. In the meantime, he exhibits part of it every year during the Marais Poitevin water market. Its last exhibition, in July 2024, extended over around thirty meters. Or the length of the family tree that he had sent to the Sharecroppers in Argentina as a gift.