Suicide in the Soviet Gulag Camps

@article{Krysiska2008SuicideIT,
  title={Suicide in the Soviet Gulag Camps},
  author={Karolina Krysińska and David Lester},
  journal={Archives of Suicide Research},
  year={2008},
  volume={12},
  pages={170 - 179}
}
About 18 million Soviet citizens passed through the Gulag system of labor and concentration camps between 1929 and 1953. Based upon literary evidence from camp survivors and published documents, the authors present reports of attempted suicide and completed suicide, along with a discussion of whether suicide in Gulag camps was a frequent or rare behavior. Similar to reports from the Nazi concentration camps during WWII the existence of Muselmänner or dokhodyagi, the dying prisoners emaciated by… 
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9 Citations

Suicide in Inmates in Nazis and Soviet Concentration Camps: Historical Overview and Critique
TLDR
This topic in Nazi concentration camps, Soviet special camps, and gulags is reviewed, providing some preliminary data for research, and it is shown that the incidence of suicide in Nazi KL could be up to 30 times higher than the general population and was also much higher than in Soviet special prisons, while available data on Soviet gulags are contradictory.
Suicide among Polish Officers during World War II in Oflag II–C Woldenberg
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An attempt to document the occurrence of suicide in the Oflag II–C Woldenberg camp in what is now Western Poland is presented, and a suicide rate of between 22.4 to 38.4 per 100,000 per year in the roughly 6,600 prisoners is estimated.
Study of Deaths by Suicide in the Soviet Special Camp Number 7 (Sachsenhausen), 1945–1950
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After World War II, Sachsenhausen Nazi concentration camp (Oranienburg) was administered until the spring of 1950 by Soviet occupation forces (Special Camp Number 7) and used mainly for political prisoners and recorded 17 suicides during the Soviet period.
The Russian GULAG: Understanding the Dangers of Marxism Combined with Totalitarianism
This study examines the Soviet Gulag, the main prison camp administration implemented in the Soviet Union. The GULAG represents an institution that is not well known, and this paper will explain why…
Investigating the Origins of Body-Disownership: the Case Study of the Gulag
This paper describes the phenomenology of the prisoner in the Gulag. In this extreme situation, the prisoner is reduced to the body-as-an-object and, as a result, develops a strong sense of…
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Złożoność i niejednoznaczność zjawiska samobójstwa to główne czynniki utrudniające planowanie i wdrażanie działań zapobiegających zachowaniom suicydalnym. Zidentyfikowane w badaniach i opisane w…
The Gulag and Soviet Society in Western Siberia, 1929-1953
Self murder: suicide and the intolerable state of a fragmented self.
Polish Studies on the KZ Syndrome Might Shed Additional Light on the Diagnostic Category of ‘Enduring Personality Change after Catastrophic Experience’: A Comment on Beltran et al. (2009)
TLDR
Several studies looked at the psychosomatic sequelae of KZ imprisonment, and involved a group of 100 Polish ex-prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and added to the discussion on diagnostic criteria, risk and triggering factors, and prognosis of EPCACE.

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