Austrian tragedy of captivity and incest

73 year old Josef Fritzl kept his daughter, Elisabeth, captive for 24 years in secret cellars in his basement where they had seven children. His wife and he adopted three of the children as babies and the rest were left in the basement with their mother. They lived in a windowless bedroom with a narrow hallway connecting it to the bathroom, the television their only glimpse of the outside world.

Fritzl’s secret unfurled when one of the imprisoned children, 19 year old Kerstin, became seriously ill. Fritzl sent her to the hospital where she lay in a coma. Authorities used the television to plead for her mother’s help and Fritzl agreed to let Elisabeth go see Kerstin. Authorities caught them in the hospital parking lot.

Fritzl’s wife, Rosemarie, and their other six children, said that they had no idea that Fritzl had help Elisabeth captive ever since she was 18 years old. He told them that Elisabeth had run away to join a secret cult and then had abandoned her three children.

Elisabeth told officials that he had sexually abused her ever since she was 11 years old.

People described Fritzl as being authoritative and iron-handed.

Austria is still recovering from this shock and also an earlier case of captivity, where Natascha Kampusch had been kidnapped on her way to school and then imprisoned in a windowless cellar for 8 years, until she escaped in 2006.

Isn’t this horrible? Elisabeth suffered for 24 years! I find it hard to believe that Rosemarie, the wife of Fritzl and Elisabeth’s mother, did not suspect anything. First of all, he’d been abusing Elisabeth ever since she was 11. Second of all, when Elisabeth “disappeared,” how come Rosemarie never searched for her? Even if she believed that Elisabeth had joined a secret cult, Rosemarie should have searched for her to bring her back or to make sure she was okay.

I wonder if Fritzl did anything to his other children?