Public Suicide for Greek Man With Fiscal Woe

Louisa Gouliamaki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mourners on Friday visited the spot where Dimitris Christoulas shot himself.

By NIKI KITSANTONIS

Published: April 4, 2012

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ATHENS — A 77-year-old Greek pensioner distraught over his financial state shot himself in the head in the capital’s busy main square near Parliament on Wednesday morning. “I don’t want to leave debts to my children,” he shouted before pulling the trigger, witnesses said.

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The location, Syntagma Square, is a focal point for frequent public demonstrations and protests. It was full of commuters using the nearby metro station when the man killed himself, around 9 a.m. Shocked witnesses told state television that the man positioned himself under a tree, cried out and fired.

The local news media identified the man as Dimitris Christoulas, a retired pharmacist, and said he left a note saying he could not face the prospect “of scavenging through garbage bins for food and becoming a burden to my child.” The police did not immediately confirm the existence of a note, but identical passages were reproduced in nearly all the Greek news media.

Three paragraphs of handwritten red text called on young Greeks to take up arms. “I believe that young people with no future will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945,” said one passage.

The suicide prompted an outpouring from politicians. In a statement, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said, “In these difficult times for our country we must all — the state and its citizens — support those next to us who are in despair.” On Wednesday evening, Greeks held a vigil in Syntagma Square, while many posted notes of condolence and protest on trees.

Reports said the note blamed “the occupation government of Tsolakoglou for taking away any chance for my survival.”

Georgios Tsolakoglou was a collaborationist prime minister during Germany’s occupation of Greece during World War II. Germany has drawn the ire of many Greeks in the last year, thanks to its role in shaping harsh austerity measures Greece was required to enact in return for billions of euros in loans from foreign creditors to avert sovereign default. The arrangement helps Europe by stabilizing the euro, but at the cost of financial ruin for some individuals and shrinking the country’s social safety net.

The number of suicides reported in Greece over the past three years has risen sharply, a trend experts attribute to repercussions of the debt crisis, including rising unemployment, now at 21 percent, and deepening poverty. Before the crisis, Greece had one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe, just over 300 a year. In 2009, the police recorded 507 suicides; in 2010, 622; and last year, 598.

A version of this article appeared in print on April 5, 2012, on page A9 of the New York edition with the headline: Public Suicide For Greek Man With Fiscal Woe.

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