“ZIZI”: A PIONEER HAS JOINED THE STARS

Marcel Isy-Schwartz left the 7 September, extending the list of pioneers of the great adventure that have passed away this year. We asked our Old Scaf to remind us who was "Zizi".

IN THE WATERS OF BRAZIL

He was, a long time ago, a true pioneer of spearfishing and shooting. At 25, he received his first crossbow. He will become champion of spearfishing in Brazil with a fish of 178 kilos. This weapon of unknown origin, he will call it Coca Cola, from the name of the firm organizing the said championship. It was during the German occupation during the last war that its future was to be decided. He must escape the Gestapo. Sporty and solid, he pissed off an officer. So, fleeing Paris, he went to live in the south on the shores of the Mediterranean. The crossbow received as a birthday present will allow him to eat and especially to discover the underwater world. Perfecting himself every day, he ends up putting a 60-kilo grouper on his arrow. A wealthy Brazilian, discovers him in a photo in the local newspaper, and invites him to his country where there are good-sized fish: in the bay of Rio a grouper required five hours of effort and not the least. The animal weighs 180 kg. World record holder -Schwartz appeared on the front page of a large circulation Parisian weekly and became famous.

DIRECTOR AND SPEAKER

He then embarked on another activity, his passion, the making of underwater films that he would screen during numerous conferences at the Salle Pleyel. The said room where all the great explorers of the time pass. Then speaker for “Connaissances du Monde”, he will also be, in 1946, one of the founders of one of the first clubs of the underwater world, that of the Underwater Hunters and Explorers of France. A shared passion

It is on this occasion that it will be given me to meet him for the first time, at the end of one of the meetings of this prestigious club which invited us, the frogmen of the Sogetram, the divers from Galerne. We were a few who came to this profession with the passion of spearfishing and met Marcel Isy-Schwartz, it was a kind of consecration. Especially that, very simple and delighted to see us around him to ask about his guns, fins and especially his huge groupers, he spoke a moment with ease.

He will also publish, after his creation in 1954, in the "Underwater Adventure", this prestigious magazine for the time of Jean albert Foex, a hunk also a real pioneer of submarine journalism. I then saw him again by chance during the boat shows in Paris on the banks of the Seine where we had a stand. We made people talk about us through our eccentricities. For example one of us had fished a hotskich machine gun on his tripod at the foot of a nearby bridge, adding a handful of German mausers, and we had been offering it all to the soldiers of the French Army stand. , we said, to improve their presentation a little too fair in our opinion. It is obvious that with this type of feat all the famous divers including Zizi came to say hello to us and applaud our jokes.

Then we lost sight of him, returned to make beautiful images, writing books that served us as Bibles, we work in the mud of building sites. The years go by and I find Zizi a little more than ten years ago at the international festival of the underwater image in Antibes. Asking him about him:

”I always dive, less often and less deep… Talking to me about his projects. He still had it. ”

Today, I have the blues because our friend Zizi is gone to hunt in the stars ...

Gerard Loridon says Old Scaf '.