Vittel Internment Camp

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Noel Holland
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Joined: 22 Feb 2017, 17:22
Location: Ireland

Re: Vittel Internment Camp

#16

Post by Noel Holland » 07 Mar 2017, 14:08

Hi. My mother, Rosemary (Pat) Say was interned at both the Besancon and Vittel camps. I wrote her story a few years back - "Rosie's War" by Noel Holland. I am now researching a broader book on the two camps and would love to hear from anyone who had relatives interned there.

stevebeste
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Joined: 13 Apr 2012, 23:03

Re: Vittel Internment Camp

#17

Post by stevebeste » 07 Mar 2017, 15:36

I have read Rosie's War. Good luck.


vlrivera
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Joined: 15 Jan 2018, 00:52
Location: Camp Vittel

Re: Vittel Internment Camp

#18

Post by vlrivera » 15 Jan 2018, 01:09

I saw a video of the Sherman tanks liberating the camp. My father, Ronald Albert Hall, my aunt Diane Hall and grandmother Marie Hall were all there. It was on ITN, but I don't remember the rest of it. My uncle in France found it and sent it to me. After they were 'released', they made it back to England. He was only 16, but lied about his age and joined the British Army. Can anyone help with the rest of the website?

mfdb
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Posts: 1
Joined: 07 Jan 2014, 16:40

Re: Vittel Internment Camp

#19

Post by mfdb » 22 Jan 2018, 14:25

Hi,
I read the book and am using it to research my relatives who were also interned but only in Frontstalag 142. I also interviewed Shula Troman who said there were a couple of errors in the book she wanted corrected! So...for your reprint you need to know... She spoke so fondly of Rosie who she called Pat.

Karski
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Posts: 74
Joined: 15 Jun 2016, 11:59
Location: Belgium

Re: Vittel Internment Camp

#20

Post by Karski » 23 Jan 2018, 13:07

In the Mémorial de la Déportation des Juifs de Belgique, by Serge Klarsfeld and Maxime Steinberg, several Jews sent to Vittel were given as "missing". An independent researcher found that at least the majority of them were still alive. He had found some of them in the phonebook. The Belgian press spoke of this affair in the last months of 1990.

Derriman
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Posts: 1
Joined: 10 Apr 2018, 05:27
Location: Vittel

Re: Vittel Internment Camp

#21

Post by Derriman » 10 Apr 2018, 05:38

Does anyone have an email address for Steve Beste, a forum member, who a year or two ago was collecting information about the Vittel Internment Camp in France? I'd like to contact him with a query. Thanks.

AdrianV
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Posts: 1
Joined: 31 May 2019, 15:15
Location: Vittel, France

Re: Vittel Internment Camp

#22

Post by AdrianV » 31 May 2019, 17:39

I am searching for the identity a Mary de Moleyns who sent a POW postcard from Front-Stalag 121 at Vittel on 31st October 1942 to a nearby address, here in Sussex. Has any researcher come across this name by any obscure chance?
Attachments
Card from Front Stalag 121.jpg

HistorianArchitect
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Joined: 14 Oct 2019, 22:49
Location: Paris

Re: Vittel Internment Camp

#23

Post by HistorianArchitect » 14 Oct 2019, 22:58

Dear all, I just visited the museum of Vittel, which is an association run by history-lovers. They produced a small brochure on the « Camp des internés civils de Vittel » which you can buy there or ask them to mail it to you. They might be able to help you run through local/regional archives if you need. I am sure they would also be interested in receiving family archives if you have some. The address is 166 rue Charles Garnier in Vittel.

brettgilbert77
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Joined: 02 Mar 2020, 23:58
Location: Wales (UK)

Re: Vittel Internment Camp

#24

Post by brettgilbert77 » 03 Mar 2020, 00:10

Good evening,
I'm beginning research into my grandmothers story, Pamela Ann Moore. Sadly she passed away in 2012 and the book she wrote, many years ago, disappeared after sending it to the BBC.
I'm trying to piece things together and have got some articles to go by. Somewhat hampered at the shrinking of family of whom to ask. If anyone has information that may help, please do contact me.

I have a researcher, Alexander Poole, checking the archives at Kew for any records of the internment or escape.

What I think we know, in brief:

• It looks like she was in Chartres in 1940, captured on the 5th December 1940 and taken to Besancon.
• She was there for 5 months before being taken to Vittel.
• She escaped, with some others and was the 25th person to have escaped, all of whom were women including a Mrs Eddington.
• I believed she was in the Vichy area, but the notes below suggest she was in Lyons gaining money and resources to secure a visa
• She then traveled through Spain and Portugal before flying home from Lisbon at the beginning of August 1942

I’ve included notes below from my auntie Julie. I’ve tried to sort them into a form of timeline if you’re interested. Some are from newspaper articles which are difficult to read.

At the outbreak of war Miss Moore was in France with friends, and she stayed with them during the debacle of 1940.

Miss Moore said to a Herald reporter today "I was very happy there. I did not suspect for a minute things were going so badly. I was not very interested in politics at the time. "She was living in the country near Chartres when on one black day, December 5 1940, the Germans swooped on British women and interned them.

Miss Moore who was educated at Notre Dame, Plymouth was living in Chartres to December 1940 when she was interned. (not sure that’s where she was actually living, I thought she was a governess of a large house further north, but perhaps a POW record will confirm?)

She was locked in a school with about 20 other people, including nuns, for several days, then moved to a barracks at Besancon where, for five weeks internees slept on straw mattresses. Later the Germans erected wooden beds in tiers. They were accommodated in barracks which had been evacuated only the day before by French and English prisoners.
After five months she was sent to Vittel, where there were accommodated about 200 or 300 nuns and 200 men of British nationality over 60.
The prisoners were treated well and housed in three hotels being looked after by four French and one British doctors, a dentist. The British nuns also helped.


She told an Echo reporter that she and about 1,000 other Englishwomen had been treated well by the Germans, housed in an hotel, and looked after by four French and one English doctor and some British nuns. Then came the escape. Miss Moore was the twenty-fifth person to escape from the camp up to the time she left four months ago. All these were women.
For obvious reasons she could give no details of how she managed to get out of the camp and make her way to Occupied France.

She was nearly caught by the Gestapo during the journey, and had to make a "quick exit" after being betrayed during the journey and was almost caught on the demarcation line, as the authorities knew a party was escaping and were lying in wait.

She was in Unoccupied France for some time, presumably Vichy area, then eventually with visas crossed to Portugal, and came home by plane from Lisbon. She had saved up her allowance of 600 francs a month from French friends and sold clothing in order to obtain funds. Once she reached Lyons, she received further financial help. she rented a furnished room and lived there for three months before obtaining her visa. She crossed the frontier into Spain and finally reached Portugal whence she left for England by plane.


In Occupied France, she said the people are very pro-British and "are just waiting for the Tommies to walk in."

.....internment camp in France, had beefsteak for ..... but this only occurred when the camp was being inspected by German officers.
Otherwise the food was poor, with a 2lb load of black bread per head every five days....

"If it had not been for the parcels we received from the Red Cross, I don't know what we should have done," said Miss Moore. "The parcels included materials which dressmakers among the Internees made up into clothes; but the food was the most important thing."

.......approaches the demarcation .... and Unoccupied France....arned, and for what seemed ...an hour, the fugitives crouched..... they go on again, and after ....wide detour cross the frontier into Vichy France.

One of the party, which included fifteen French prisoners of war and six Alsatians, was a young Plymouth girl, Miss Pamela Ann Moore, of 35 St George's Avenue, Peverell, who has returned to this country to join the Wrens in some capacity where her knowledge of french will be useful.


We found a photo of her sitting in a cafe which I believe is Portugal. On the back it says "Caldas da Rainha in Lisbon". Also a big one of her shaking hands with older lady who is Mrs Eddington, who she escaped with, when they met up in London after their return.

Any help/link appreciated.

Racine5136
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Posts: 1
Joined: 28 Sep 2020, 19:43
Location: France

Re: Vittel Internment Camp

#25

Post by Racine5136 » 28 Sep 2020, 20:03

Hello,
first of all sorry for my english.
I saw that a lot of personns were searching about Vittel Camp.
I m looking for a British citizen who has been arrested in aug 1940 in Bordeaux, and stayed in Vittel untille 1944. (Named T.G. Quincey)
He has been reapatriated (?) on the Drottningholm swedish boat from Lisboa to Liverppol in Aug 1944.
I heard that a "newspaper" was written in the Vittel's camp, by some british citizen... Does anybody else heard of it ? Where can i find some
informations about that ?

and if you have information about the drottnigholm ... It will be fantastic (I wrote everywhere... except red cross in Geneva - i try but there
was a bug... and now i must wait January 2021 !!!

thks for all the information you can share with me
best regards
Racine5136

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