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Conditions of life and death of psychiatric patients in France during World War II: euthanasia or collateral casualties?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2017

Patrick Lemoine  and
Stephen M. Stahl
Patrick Lemoine*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Clinique Lyon Lumière, Lyon, France
Stephen M. Stahl
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California, United States
*
*Address for correspondence: Patrick Lemoine, Department of Psychiatry, Clinique Lyon Lumière, 33 Rue du 8 Mai 1945, 69330 Meyzieu, Lyon, France. (Email: [email protected])
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Abstract

Between 1940 and 1944, an estimated 48,588 patients resident in French psychiatric hospitals died of starvation. Standard prisons, while facing similar problems, did not experience the same number of deaths by starvation, partly due to their ability to develop a black market for food and rations. Patients in psychiatric hospitals, on the other hand, were completely at the mercy of their doctors and the personnel in charge. At Hôpital du Vinatier, a psychiatric facility in Lyon, the mortality rate increased sharply from 1940 to 1944. In 1942, the worst year, 42% of patients died of hunger and exposure. In the end, more than 2,000 patients died at Vinatier. Was this due to a supposed lack of rations, or was it something more sinister? In Germany at the same time, tens of thousands of psychiatric patients died of purposeful starvation in psychiatric hospitals as part of the Nazi program of psychiatric euthanasia. Was the same thing occurring in Lyon?

Keywords

World war IIFrancemortalitystarvationpsychiatric hospitalization. euthanasia
Type
Opinions
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 23 , Special Issue 2: Evil, psychiatry, and terrorism: understanding the roots of evil , April 2018 , pp. 170 - 175
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

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