Château de Chaumont (La Serre-Bussière-Vieille)

Château de Chaumont is a ruined château undergoing restoration. It is located in Chaumont, straddling the municipalities of Mainsat and La Serre-Bussière-Vieille, in the Creuse department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in central France.

This article is about the ruined 20th century château. It is not to be confused with Château de Chaumont or Château de Chaumont-la-Guiche.
Château de Chaumont
Château ruins in 2017
Château de Chaumont (La Serre-Bussière-Vieille) is located in France
Château de Chaumont (La Serre-Bussière-Vieille)
Location within France
General information
StatusRuin, undergoing restoration
AddressChaumont, La Serre-Bussière-Vieille, France
Coordinates46.0518169°N 2.3650146°E / 46.0518169; 2.3650146

The path leading to the château (rue de Chaumont) is in the town of Mainsat, but the building itself is in the neighbouring town of La Serre-Bussière-Vieille.[1][2]

History

The château was built in the early 20th century by a Russian industrialist for his protégé Eugénie Bardet, a young singer from Creuse.[3]

Children's home: a refuge for Jews (1939–1945)

From 1939, the château was rented to the charity Œuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE) ("Children's relief work").[3][4] From 1940, the history of the château is linked to the rescue of Jews during the Second World War. The Creuse department welcomed approximately 3,000 Jews including 1,000 children between 1939 and 1945. The OSE had three secular reception centres for children in Creuse, including Chaumont, directed by Lotte Schwarz. The Synagogue de Neuilly, created in 1866 in the Paris region, moved in 1939 due to the German occupation of the city to Creuse as it was in the zone libre ("free zone").

In 1940, French humourist Popeck, then four years old, took refuge at the château until 1942.[5] Memoirist Fanny Ben-Ami and her sisters sheltered there for three years before the children were betrayed.[6]

The concert promoter Bill Graham, later based in San Francisco, also spent part of his childhood at the château as a child refugee of the Nazis before traveling to the United States.[7]

At the entrance to rue de Chaumont there is a commemorative plaque.[3][8]

Fire and abandonment

When Bardet died, her heirs decided to sell the château. In 1967, the château was sold to Jean-François Mironnet, steward of Coco Chanel, and his ex-model wife. Chanel has therefore never owned the premises.[3]

In February 1986, the building was destroyed by fire, with only the external walls remaining standing.[9] Mironnet's wife, alone in the château at the time of the fire, managed to escape from the flames by tying bed sheets through a window.[3]

In 2017, the property was put up for sale on the French classified ads website Leboncoin.[10]

In October 2022, Dan Preston, an English expatriate and founder of the YouTube channel Escape to rural France,[11] purchased the château with a view to its complete restoration.[12]

References
  1. "Cadastral map of La Serre-Bussière-Vieille Plan". The Cadastre.
  2. "Mainsat (119304)". OpenStreetMap.org.
  3. "Un château ayant recueilli des enfants juifs en Creuse en vente sur Le Bon coin" [A castle that received Jewish children in Creuse for sale on Le Bon coin]. La Montagne (in French). 17 September 2017. Retrieved 16 February 2023.
  4. "A group of girls and their counselor in a children's home under the auspices of the French-Jewish organization OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) who saved Jewish children during the Holocaust. Chateau de Chaumont, France, 1943". Yad Vashem. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  5. Popeck. Je veux bien qu'on rie, mais pas qu'on se moque [I want to be laughed at, but not made fun of] (in French). Paris: JC Lattès. ISBN 978-2-7096-0422-2.
  6. "A young heroine's long journey: When still a child in France, she saved 28 children from deportation". Jewish Chronicle. 17 November 2016. Retrieved 12 December 2022.
  7. "Bill Graham". jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 25 October 2023.
  8. "Le mémorial de Chaumont" [The Chaumont memorial]. La Creuse (in French). Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  9. "À Mainsat, le château de Chaumont - refuge de jeunes juifs pendant la guerre - est à vendre" [In Mainsat, the Château de Chaumont - refuge for young Jews during the war - is for sale]. France bleu (in French). 27 September 2017. Retrieved 16 February 2023.
  10. "Mainsat: le château est à vendre, pas son histoire" [Mainsat: the castle is for sale, not its history] (in French). 28 September 2017. Retrieved 16 February 2023.
  11. "Escape to rural France". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 16 February 2023.
  12. "Saving a Building That Saved Hundreds of Children. Château de Chaumont was a sanctuary for young Jews fleeing the Nazis. Now a British contractor is restoring the French mansion, and documenting his renovations". The Tablet. 16 June 2023. Retrieved 30 June 2023.
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