Vittel Internment Camp reply letter sheet - Request for information

[John Cranmer]

I recently found this half used reply letter sheet addressed to Canada from the Vittel Internment camp in France dated May 1942.  I have attached scans of the inside and outside.

While there is quite a bit of information about the Vittel camp on the web I have not been able to find anything specifically about the letter sheets which were obviously printed specially.  This is the first I have ever seen  Perhaps they are not rare but I suspect that they are not that common. 

If anyone has any information about these or better still can give me a link to such information I would be most grateful.

Did any other internment camps use this type of stationery.  From the section for the name and address of the sender it appears that there should be others as the Camp name, in a different font, appears to have been printed later.

John

[John Cranmer]

That last attempt at posting attachments failed so I will try again

John

[Richard Berry]

Hello John,

Observations in no particular order or in order of importance:

- The destination to Canada from Vittel camp is unusual. I've not previously seen one to Canada.
- The letter sheet with the reply part is also unusual. The expectation is I would have thought that if you'd received one of these letter sheets from a civilian internee that the return portion would have been used to reply to them.
- Other styles of these letter sheets with a response portion were used in Vittel which confirms multiple printings. I certainly have one in the style of yours sent in the same month with the return portion intact - it was sent to the UK by a nun working in the camp hospital.
- Similar lettre de reponse were certainly used by stalags in Germany.
- I've not seen similar lettre de reponse for St Denis - the other major civilian internment camp in France that held mostly British Civilian internees.
- Censor 7 used in Vittel camp is one of the less common censors. It is listed in Vogt's book but not shown in Horton (see next)
- Probably the best book with illustrations of envelopes, lettersheets and postcards is "Les civils britanniques internes en europe entre 1939 et 1945" by Roger Horton. As you can probably tell by the title it's in French. We have a copy in the underutilised Society Library - book GB106.
- Most incoming mail I have going into Vittel and St Denis uses either ordinary stamped envelopes or prisoner of war post airmail letter sheets.

I think that this is an interesting item that you have in your collection.

I hope this is useful.

Richard

[John Cranmer]

Thank you for the reply it was very helpful and informative. 

I only collect items with a Canadian connection, not including letters addressed to Canada but with no other Canadian markings.  However I will probably make an exception if I come across other items like this.

I will also look through the library list.

AQ