Vittel is a French commune located in the Vosges department in the Grand Est region, known worldwide for its mineral water. Its inhabitants are called the Vittellois (es).
Vittel was divided into two sections by the Petit
Vair. On the left bank was the Grand-Ban and on the right bank, the
Petit-Ban, to the Duke of Lorraine. Thus, although compact, the
village had two justices and two parishes. The Grand-Ban had for
patron Saint Remi, celebrated on October 1, and the Petit-Ban, Saint
Privat, honored on August 21. To cut short the quarrels, the bishop
of Toul granted, in 1734, two patronal feasts in Vittel. The
Revolution put an end to this division by making Vittel a canton
capital.
Spa resort frequented by the Romans, it was only
operated in contemporary times from 1854.
The town of Vittel
saw its fate irremediably linked to hydrotherapy in 1854 when a
fountain was purchased by a spa guest from Rodez, Louis Bouloumié, a
lawyer convinced by the benefits of Vittel water.
The water
from the Gérémoy fountain, named after the area where it is located,
officially treated gout, gravel, diabetes, the bladder and the
urinary tract from 1855.
The spa establishment authorized by
the government will be the first stone of a large building that will
quickly form the spa of Vittel.
From May
1, 1941 to September 12, 1944, an internment camp called "reception
camp", the Vittel internment camp, was set up by the German
occupiers in the spa park. He gathered around two thousand British,
Canadian and then American women to serve as bargaining chips.
In January 1943 were added three hundred Jews from Drancy, the
USSR and Poland. Among the internees from the Warsaw ghetto was Mary
Berg. It was exchanged for German prisoners and left for the United
States where it arrived on March 16, 1944. She wrote a journal,
Warsaw Ghetto: A Diary. She describes a camp intended to reassure
the Red Cross, where conditions were therefore good.
Among
the other internees, Sofka Skipwith (biography in Wikipedia in
English), and Hillel Seidman.
Madeleine Steinberg, British
internee, also speaks of the Vittel camp in her memoirs, Les Camps
de Besançon et de Vittel.
Among the internees were also the
Yiddish poet Ytshak Katzenelson and his son Zvi, deported on April
29, 1944 to Auschwitz, and gassed upon their arrival on May 1, 1944,
as were almost all Polish internees. Katzenelson had had time to
bury his poem The Song of the Assassinated Jewish People, written in
Vittel.
Édouard Herriot was interned at the Villa Suzanne
from April 12 to August 2, 1943.
The city was liberated by
the Leclerc division on September 12, 1944.
1998: The Vittel bypass is inaugurated, it bypasses the city from
the south.
2009: Creation of the community of municipalities of
Vittel-Contrexéville.
By train
Train connections to Nancy (1h15) and Épinal (1h), but
not particularly frequent. 1 Vittel station is on the line to Nancy
In the street
Vittel is about 12 km from the A31 slip road at
Bulgnéville
It is about 46 km to Épinal via the D 165
Vittel is on
the Green Road holiday route (Route Verde), which goes from the
neighboring town of Contrexéville through Alsace via Freiburg im
Breisgau and the southern Black Forest to Donaueschingen. There is also
a bike tour variant.
The city is located about 40 kilometers west of the departmental
capital (prefecture) Épinal at an altitude of 322 to 457 m above sea
level. A few kilometers southeast of Vittel (at the Col des Clochettes)
is the watershed that separates the catchment areas of the Meuse, Rhine
(North Sea) and Rhone (Mediterranean) rivers. Vittel is crossed by the
little river Petit Vair, into which its tributary Belle Fontaine flows.
Neighboring communes of Vittel are Parey-sous-Montfort and
They-sous-Montfort to the north, Haréville and Valleroy-le-Sec to the
east, Thuillières to the south-east, Lignéville to the south,
Contrexéville to the south-west and Norroy and Saint-Remimont to the
west.
Hydrographic network
The town is located in the watershed of the
Meuse within the Rhine-Meuse basin. It is drained by the Petit Vair
stream, the Belle Fontaine stream, the They stream, the Malmaison stream
and the Pre Janneton stream.
The Petit Vair, with a total length
of 15.6 km, has its source in the town of Thuillières and flows into the
Vair at Saint-Remimont, on the border with Belmont-sur-Vair, after
having crossed six towns.
Water management and quality
The
municipal territory is covered by the water development and management
plan (SAGE) “Grès groundwater from the Lower Triassic”. This planning
document, whose territory includes the perimeter of the water
distribution zoneNote 1 of the Lower Triassic Sandstone aquifer (GTI),
with an area of 1,497 km2, is currently being drawn up. The objective
pursued is to stabilize the piezometric levels of the GTI aquifer and
achieve a balance between withdrawals and the recharge capacity of the
aquifer. It must be consistent with the quality objectives defined in
the Rhine-Meuse and Rhône-Mediterranean SDAGEs. The supporting structure
for development and implementation is the Vosges departmental council.
The quality of watercourses can be consulted on a dedicated site
managed by the water agencies and the French Agency for Biodiversity.