quote:

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In her statement, Elisabeth F. said her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11. Her father allegedly sedated, handcuffed and locked her in a room in the cellar on Aug. 28, 1984. She was reported missing a day later, and a month later a letter surfaced, allegedly written by her, saying she didn't want to be found.

Over 24 years, Elisabeth F. had seven children. She gave birth to twins in 1996, but one died several days later because of inappropriate care. The father allegedly removed the body from the cellar and burned it.

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http://origin.www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/27/austria-incest.html

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Man 'kept daughter in dungeon for 24 years'

Telegraph TV: The house where the woman was held
The 42-year-old - named yesterday only as Elisabeth F - said she was drugged, handcuffed and dragged into the adapted cellar beneath the family home in 1984 and there since.

"They are all in psychological care in a secure institution in a clinic here in this area," a spokesman said. "They are being cared for individually - those between 12 and 16 years of age who grew up with their grandparents, and two boys who, when they came out yesterday with their mother, saw the daylight for the first time in their lives."

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Miss F reportedly has four siblings, all of whom have families of their own and are well-respected in the local community.

[ 28 April 2008: Message edited by: remind ]

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The latest case reminded Austrians of Natascha Kampusch, who was 10 years old when she was kidnapped in 1998 on her way to school in Vienna. She was held by Wolfgang Priklopil for nearly nine years in a small dungeon in his home in the suburbs. Hours after Kampusch escaped in August 2006, Priklopil killed himself by jumping in front of a train.

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This has been very difficult to wrap one's mind around and the oddest questions keep popping in like:

what in the hell would have the results been had he died suddenly with the 4 of them locked up in there?

how is the 19 year old daughter now?

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Originally posted by Polly Brandybuck:
This is fucking horrific.

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The girl was 18 when she was reported missing. She is 42 years old now. Her oldest child is apparently 19 or 20. So how is it the wife "had no clue". The husband/rapist just showed up with these three kids in tow and said, "raise these kids. They are my missing daughter's." Does that make any sense whatsoever?

For the wife not to have known anything these three kids would have to be over 25 years old.

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Originally posted by Stargazer:
The girl was 18 when she was reported missing. She is 42 years old now. Her oldest child is apparently 19 or 20. So how is it the wife "had no clue". The husband/rapist just showed up with these three kids in tow and said, "raise these kids. They are my missing daughter's." Does that make any sense whatsoever?

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So, it is not helpfull for a man, to chastise a woman, in the feminist forum, for having an emotional reaction to this.

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Prosecutors have said Mr Fritzl faces up to 15 years in prison if he is eventually convicted on charges of raping and beating his daughter, and sequestration.

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BBC

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Originally posted by remind:
There had to be extra groceries to feed 4 other people coming into that house. Clothes, sanitary napkins, and other necessities, and hydro for a whole other house etc....

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Originally posted by Polly Brandybuck:

I wondered about noise. Sure they were in the cellar, but toilets flushing and water running and didn't anyone ever scream or break things or pound on the walls, pipes, ceilings....

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I got the impression it was an apartment building owned by the man charged, that he rented out other apartments, and that he and his wife lived on the top floor. If this is so, some things are a little bit easier to understand. (Apparently, for the first while she was down there - the woman who is now 42 - she did try making noise, banging on the walls, etc., but eventually gave it up as futile.)

ETA: I'm uncomfortable with the media coverage of this case. It's exploitive.

[ 29 April 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]

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Even though Mr Fritzl’s former employers and neighbours – as well as newspaper investigations – revealed that he had previous convictions for sex offences and arson in the 1970s and the 1980s, the authorities claimed that it would probably be impossible to recover the original criminal records because such documents were not kept in Austria after a certain time.

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I don't think we should be so quick to call the wife a liar.

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This case reminds me of a case in the US. A "happily married" man living with his wife on remote farm land used to steal away evenings, searching for young males and visiting gay bars. Turns out this man was busily raping and murdering the men he picked up, whom he buried on his property.

The wife apparently had no idea a) her husband was gay and b) that he was killing and raping men in their house. When she found human bones on their property she claims she threw it away with no thought as to how or why it was there.

I have a very hard time believing she knew nothing about her husband's activities.

I'm also having a hard time believing the wife in this case was totally clueless.

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Alas rape and incest occur everywhere, but I'll be asking a friend in Vienna if Austrians have a thing for secret dungeons... after these two horrible cases.[/QB]

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The BBC mentioned that there was a third case as well, but did not provide any further details. Also, in a video of people's reactions to this story, one woman said she remembers two others cases like this one, she wonders what other people are hiding in their cellars and that there are some truly horrible people "among us". Certainly don't want to paint Austria in a bad light, but it is true that Austrians are asking the same question - why 3 such cases have occurred in their country.

I really have no words to describe my thoughts and feelings apart from a small bit of joy that they are all free now. I felt sick to my stomach and almost unable to talk reading this in the news yesterday.

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Three of the children lived with the grandparents. Fritzl and his wife registered those children with authorities, saying that they had found them outside their home in 1993, 1994 and 1997.

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It may very well be that the wife had no idea.

edited to add link

Strange Reunion

[ 30 April 2008: Message edited by: Stargazer ]

The third case involved a mother, and while I don't think sexual abuse was involved, obviously sequestration and denial of the most basic human freedom was.

From Stargazer's link:

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Three of the children lived with the grandparents. Fritzl and his wife registered those children with authorities, saying that they had found them outside their home in 1993, 1994 and 1997.

Leopold Etz, a regional police official, told APA that Fritzl apparently chose which of the children would live upstairs with him and his wife according to whether they were "cry babies.''

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We aren't talking about some old-time 16C cellar, here. From the same link:

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Regarding the apartment building that Fritzl owned and lived in, the town's authorities authorized the construction of an addition with a basement in 1978, city spokesman Hermann Gruber told the Austria Press Agency. He said inspectors examined the project in 1983 – the year before the young woman went missing – and nothing looked suspicious.

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Yet another (extreme) case that exposes just how dissociated / sociopathic normal is. I know there are more than a few here who know what I'm writing about, from their own personal experiences.

Because it's only in a profoundly disconnected society populated by numbed-out people that this kind of thing could happen.

And the few who call it what it is are shouted down as humourless, emotional, extreme ...

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Originally posted by remind:
One has to recognize this event is a huge trigger for women who have been sexually abused, and an even larger one for those who have been unlawfully confined by someone. So, it is not helpfull for a man, to chastise a woman, in the feminist forum, for having an emotional reaction to this.

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I was sexually abused as a child repeatedly for years by one of my grandmothers. The abuse was concealed in such a way that I believe my grandfather had little or absolutely no idea it was happening. And frankly, even if he did, I chose to believe he didn't, because it would be extremely hard to fathom how he could let such abuse continue if he had an inkling of what was going on. He was my refuge from abuse when he took me out of the house or stayed close to me inside the house.

In the same token that one must realize that this story could be a trigger for a woman who was sexually abused, it was definitely a trigger for a man who was sexually abused - me.

I don't think I chastised Stargazer at all, and if I did I sincerely apologize.

I believe I offered an alternate possibility and said we shouldn't be quick to judge without having more information. Remind, I could completely understand your reaction if I had come into this forum and attacked the woman who was abused or tried to defend the abuser, but at this point we simply don't know whether the abuser's wife knew about this, or if she did know, whether she could have done anything. I think we need to consider the possibility that the wife may have been emotionally (or possibly physically or sexually) abused and prevented from doing something to stop this. I think my point was meant to ensure that we don't blame someone who may have been abused and not an additional abuser.

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Originally posted by Sineed:
Maybe there's so many of these Austrian dungeon cases because the Austrians have dungeons, or some sort of thick-walled, deep cellar, in their houses, for food storage or whatever, and not because of some sort of Austrian cultural trait.

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Of course, one could also be held captive in a basement in Canada. It does look like Fritz intentionally soundproofed the cellar and added the electronic key system before he kidnapped his daughter specifically to hold her as a captor. But seriously, I do not mean to imply that Austrians have a problem; merely pointing out that Austrians, like the rest of us, are expressing shock and disbelief that 3 such horrific cases could have occurred and come to light in their country in such a short period of time by asking the question 'why'. Certainly, cases of people being held captive like this are not unheard of in the rest of the world. I remember the cases of Alan Hopkinson in Sussex and Marc Dutroux in Belgium. Numerous others, I'm sure. I think one of the key differences in this case and Natascha Kampusch's case is that the perpetrators were able to hide their secrets for much longer than either Hopkinson or Dutroux.

ETA: Hi Stargazer!

[ 30 April 2008: Message edited by: ephemeral ]

I hope the children can, though. The world must be so strange and frightening to them, having been kept in isolation their whole lives.

I suspect the daughter/granddaughther who is in critical condition was abused as well, as she is 19 and I doubt the mum/daughter would interest the old bastard any more, as evidently she looks rather elderly and decrepit after all that, although she is your age.

I wonder if the kids even know how to read and write?

I suspect the daughter/granddaughther who is in critical condition was abused as well, as she is 19 and I doubt the mum/daughter would interest the old bastard any more, as evidently she looks rather elderly and decrepit after all that, although she is your age.

I wonder if the kids even know how to read and write?

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Originally posted by lagatta:
Alas, I hold out very little hope indeed for this woman. Can't possibly see what the rest of her life could hold out for her - they say she looks much older than 42.

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Its just all so unfathomable.

And are there other yet-undiscovered cases around the world? Odds are....

Yes, basically it would probably mean he'd die in prison or emerge at an age when there is no point in imprisoning anyone.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
It's basically the rest of his life either way. And I have the impression that Europeans tend to be a little more enlightened than North Americans when it comes to prison sentence length, so what probably sounds light to us is not so light there.

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What is enlightened about a mere 15 yrs for this heinous crime? He could certainly live to be 100 and be released at age 85. I know people in their 90s who live alone, have their wits and function fine in life.

I can speak for myself about my position on justice, thanks. We survivors can speak for ourselves.

I don't think that is the crux of the matter here anyway, nor do most media in Austria. They are wondering rather how the dad's story on the "foundling" kids got accepted without further inquiry, and in general, questioning the culture of silence about possible abuse next door.

However, had this man been locked up sufficiently after the crimes he committed in the 70s and 80s, perhaps his daughter would not have been imprisoned herself.

I also did not mean to suggest that locking this man up will in any way make up for what he did to his daughter or be comparable. But he has lost his right to freedom for the rest of his life.

To those who don't think he should be locked up, what should happen to him?

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Originally posted by writer:
Who here has indicated that he shouldn't be locked up?

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lagatta implied that imprisonment is a step backwards. Others implied that he should not be locked up until his death.

This is what she wrote. In response to your statement that 15 years was a "slap in the face" for one of the survivors.

I'm still having a really hard time with how you are framing this, to be honest.

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Originally posted by writer:
"Turning criminal justice into revenge is a serious step backwards"

This is what she wrote. In response to your statement that 15 years was a "slap in the face" for one of the survivors.

I'm still having a really hard time with how you are framing this, to be honest.

It's not how I think. It's now how I want to think. So I can't and won't answer your question, as framed.

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Okay, I will ask the question. (it is not just directed at you, but at anyone who wants to comment).

News reports say he seems healthy and active, not frail. He is sure capable of going off on sex tours, and managing a dungeon and a secret family!

But the sentence is the responsibility of the Austrian justice system, and the penalties their law sets forth for the offences of which he is committed.

I follow Amnesty reports and have no reason to think that Austrian justice falls short in such cases. Sure, there are things one can criticise Austria for - a failure to recognise the extent of its culpability in Nazism and strive to make up for it, unlike Germany, or certain tendencies to xenophobia, but the crminal justice system seems as fair as any other democratic country's.

And no sentence can equal the harm this man has done to his family, and perhaps other people, near and far (including prostituted children in Thailand).

[ 01 May 2008: Message edited by: lagatta ]

As a result, most abusers get away, scott free - in the way that most people think of justice as being found in the so-called criminal justice system.

And the cycle is perpetuated.

Just take a look at the life cycle of a rape: from act(s), to reporting, to charges, to court, to a finding of guilt. At each stage, the survivor is erased, the trauma reborn, and the likelihood of any "time" unlikely.

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Originally posted by writer:
The reaction is to make the perpetrators monsters who have no connection to the larger society. But these people expose ugly realities about the societies they live in. The places where they've gotten away with doing what they do.

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Well put.

As I thought yesterday about this news story, this real-life trauma, and the woman being my age, and I was thinking about what turn my life took around that time, I just thought that anyone hearing about this story must be affected on some personal level. It's like the uncovering of a reality like that sends out this quiet shockwave of - I don't even know what the emotions are: sadness, horror, revulsion - that hits each of us internally. As writer suggests, it exposes what's truly ugly about us collectively. Although I guess it makes some of us wonder if maybe there are some people who just aren't like most humans, who are just not capable of natural, healthy, human response; a natural, inborn sense of what's right and what's deeply, deeply wrong.

It's something I would definitely want to ask of this man: how did he justify to himself the taking of someone else's freedom and dignity? His own daughter's.

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Originally posted by jas:
I can't think of what possible punishment would be appropriate for this man. Perhaps leaving him in his community to face the people who thought they knew him. To answer their questions. To face his other children, and their children. Well, I guess he could get that behind bars, too.

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I guess it makes some of us wonder if maybe there are some people who just aren't like most humans

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I know some of us are simply reminded of the acts of relatives, partners, friends and acquaintances against us.

Control, domination and abuse aren't restricted to a specially built basement.

[ 06 May 2008: Message edited by: writer ]

What I found most distressing about this case was that he was charged with raping a 24-year old woman in the sixties and spent only 18 monhts in jail for that. People spend more time in jail for stealing money.

I think our justice system really needs to get to a point where women's lives are valued and that sentences for crimes against women are just. I spent time researching this type of thing in university and there is a trend of criminals receiving smaller sentences for rape, murder against women, sexual assault and violence against women - compared to other crimes.

The problem here is not whether women are respected or not, but the particular nature of sex criminals - somehow they seem more "incorrigeable" than other offenders - many of whom outgrow their bad ways.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
Perhaps convicted thieves DON'T spend more time than that in prison in Austria. Many European countries don't favour long prison sentences, as they don't think they promote rehabilitation.

The problem here is not whether women are respected or not, but the particular nature of sex criminals - somehow they seem more "incorrigeable" than other offenders - many of whom outgrow their bad ways.

There is no way a punishment, in a democratic society, could be equal to what Fritzl inflicted on his family (or on probably minor sex workers a world away), simply due to the fact that he is not a child - even the mum was first raped by him when she was only 11. The only people in Austria who call for such punishment are the far right, but they also want to punish people for having the wrong skin colour.

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So again i ask - what to you support be done with him?

I agree that rehabilition is impossible most likely, but that is beside the point. Some criminals dont deserve to be rehabilitated. He is one of them.

Yes, the most important thing is for his victims to have some sense of safety. I don't think any of them can ever feel safe. His daughter is physically and psychogically ruined - frankly I think she'd probably be better off passing away peacefully. And the oldest granddaughter/daughter of the incest rapes will most likely die or remain a wreck as well. I don't see how any of them but the wee son can possibly live as human beings again.

I think the more important question to ask is what communities can do to prevent or mitigate such actions, without falling into totalitarian snooping.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
I'm not Austrian so I have no say in their sentences for major crimes. I will be asking Austrian friends - who are feminists but also very anti-prison.

Yes, the most important thing is for his victims to have some sense of safety. I don't think any of them can ever feel safe. His daughter is physically and psychogically ruined - frankly I think she'd probably be better off passing away peacefully. And the oldest granddaughter/daughter of the incest rapes will most likely die or remain a wreck as well. I don't see how any of them but the wee son can possibly live as human beings again.

I think the more important question to ask is what communities can do to prevent or mitigate such actions, without falling into totalitarian snooping.

Remember that the police arrived chez Bernardo/Homolka and turned around, seeing the nice young couple mowing the lawn and washing their nice car.

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Originally posted by lagatta:
Cripes, you've misread me - and my friends.

I'm very anti-prison - prisons are academies for crime. But I'd certainly advocate incarcerating this guy, and so would my friends. It is just that they don't go along with the idea that more severe penalties for crime discourage criminals or lower the crime rate - they don't. Or like the kind of people who do say things like that, people like Haider.

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I am sorry if I mis-read you, but I am still confused. You are anti and pro-prison at the same time?

But yes, like many people who are opposed to the current system, I am very much an enemy of police and prisons. That does not mean I wouldn't call the cops if I were victim of a robber or assault, but it does mean that I recognise that those institutions exist above all to support private property and existing class relations.

And they traumatized me in a way the person who attacked me could not.

In your enthusiasm for state control, are you saying that you support the further traumatization of survivors by the state?

This is not a question I would normally ask. This is a mirror of how you are behaving in this discussion.

writer, interesting you should have said what you did about the police - years ago I worked in a centre for battered women, and at the time the police had little understanding for or sympathy with the victims of spousal assault - it was practically a bad joke.

I'd been pondering this, with respect to Fritzl's monstruous actions - remember, they started with an incestuous assault of his daughter when she was only 11. In many societies (and not just Austria, as Heather Mallick wisely pointed out in her essay, which you can read on the rabble.ca front page) there is a culture of family secrecy that makes it extremely difficult for children and teenagers to come forward (Fritzl continued to assault his daughter off and on until she was 18 or 19, when he incarcerated her, perhaps from fear his victim could escape as a young adult).

The kids learned the lesson well. If it is this scary at home, how much scarier it must be in the unknown outside.

The children were beaten, raped and so on. When the remains of women were found in Fred and Rosemary West's basement and backyard, the children discovered that they had been eating on top of their missing eldest sister's body for years.

Yes, lagatta, it is the silencing that makes room for these horrors, and our culture's refusal to listen to those who've experienced it from the inside, trying to describe how they were silenced by behaviour similar to what I'm seeing on this thread.

Language like good touch / bad touch is a bit of a minefield if we want people to feel good about being touched, being sensual ...

If a child is told that a particular kind of touch is bad, and is then somehow convinced to try it, to trust, and that bad touch ends up feeling good, we as a culture have seriously let down that child, and abandoned him/her to a complexity s/he shouldn't have to face as a child.

A complexity the abuser likely knows well, and is eager to exploit and manipulate.

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Originally posted by Gab:
I just hope that a productive outcome surfaces from this case and that it isn't just sensationalized for people's entertainment and then disgarded.

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Originally posted by writer:
Ghislaine, after I was sexually assaulted, I went to the police. They tried to break me. They asked me what I wore. They doubted my sincerity. They scared me in a way only people with the authority of the state behind them can scare a person.

And they traumatized me in a way the person who attacked me could not.

In your enthusiasm for state control, are you saying that you support the further traumatization of survivors by the state?

This is not a question I would normally ask. This is a mirror of how you are behaving in this discussion.

It is repugnant.

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Writer, I think you misunderstand me. I agree with you 100% that treatment of women in our justice system is atrocious. I stated this further up in the thread. I have dealt with this as a social worker first hand.

For me, the solution is not to abandon imprisonment for those found guilty of heinous crimes. The solution is to ensure that when State power is used the survivors feel supported, safe and protected by the law. I am somewhat offended that you would imply that I support state traumatization of survivors of abuse.

As well, it cannot be imprisonment only. As lagatta stated there were a number of ways in which all of this could have been prevented. The daughter could have been educated about sexual abuse, her inherent right say no and what parents are not allowed to do. She also could have felt confident that those working in schools, justice etc. would listen, believe her and respond when she confided in them about her abuse.

As well, the justice system could have dealt more appropriately with the father when he was found guilty of other sex crimes decades ago. This is where imprisonment comes in. Just as I know that the system is unfair, prejudiced and awful for survivors of rape who do come forward, I believe that when they are listened to and a guilty verdict is found rape should result in a much higher penalty. The stats say this won't deter others. I don't really care about that, and also do not care whether these rapists can be rehabilitated. At least that person won't be able to rape anyone else and he won't be enjoying the freedom that he does not deserve.

Please do not put words into my mouth. I agree with everything yourself and lagatta wrote - except the notion that believing in long prison sentences for rapists, sexual abusers, etc. is somehow anti-feminist.

in Argentina

in Britain

So we know that probably Elisabeth Fritzl's case, although particularly disturbing, is probably not the only one, and that there must be, statistically, other children or adults currently in some kind of abusive captivity.