Europe Features
Austria's dungeon - 60 square metres without light or hope
Apr 28, 2008, 16:04 GMT
An Austrian police handout picture made available on 28 April 2008 showing a room of the cellar in which 73-year-old Josef F. is believed to have held his 42-year-old daughter captive for 24 years following Josef F.\'s detention in Amstetten, Austria on 27 April 2008. EPA/AUSTRIAN POLICE/HANDOUT
Amstetten, Austria - A grey family home, dirty walls, high, impenetrable hedges ... the first impressions of Austria's 'horror house', where a father kept his daughter prisoner for 24 years, sexually abusing her and fathering seven children.
Inside, matters are worse - photos released by Austrian police show the true extent of the crime and the human tragedy involved.
Hidden behind a huge, steel-reinforced concrete door in the cellar lies the dungeon where Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, and three of her children had to vegetate for many years ... without sunlight or hope of fleeing their incarceration.
A small door hidden behind a shelf led to the rooms, about 60 square metres in total. The steel door could only be opened by remote control. The code was known only to Josef Fritzl, a retired technician from Amstetten, a town in the province of Lower Austria, and currently the country's most-hated man.
Via a five-metre corridor, the dungeon warder could enter the barely 1.7-metre high room with cooking and washing facilities where a few children's drawings and a toy elephant were found.
The dungeon's sparsely furnished rooms had empty cots decorated with children's drawings and little stars.
A TV set and videos were their only window to the outside world. But no natural windows let in fresh air or sunlight.
Kerstin, 19, Stefan, 18, and Felix, 5, spent all their lives in those rooms, imprisoned by their father who was also their grandfather. They never went to school or played in the garden, like their other three siblings did, who were taken from their mother as infants.
Josef claimed the 'missing' mother had left them at his doorstep.
© Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
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Terrible. It is lucky that the daughter and her children were found before he croked. Hopefully they can be saved and begin their lives. As for him, the rat.....drawn and quartered sounds about right.
After reading this heinous crime against defenseless and helpless women and children, i just feel that this very sick man should get a speedy trial. If found guilty, electrocute him ASAP. If no one pushes the button, I will press it if I can somehow. Sorry, I have no mercy for such person like this.
Which is more incredible - having forced his daughter to have 7 children by him - or keeping her locked up in that 'dungeon' for 24 years??? Ah another AUSTRIAN in the mold of 'darling' ADOLPH - deparved monsters!!!
I find it impossible to believe that his wife didn't know what was going on for 24 years.
Now that two women have been held captive in dungeons for decades (Natasha 10 yrs and Elisabeth 24) perhaps the police, authorities and neighbors will start to think the unthinkable. You would think technology could help too. Heck, why can't we just implant everyone with a GPS device. Then we'll know where EVERYONE is. I'd do just about anything to track my 6 year old girl or 3 year old boy. God forbid should something happen- how could i sleep knowing there are monsters out there capable of such acts. While I ramble- I oppose the death penalty, but I am rethinking that. This guy should die. That way the family can move on. Society shouldn't pay a cent to feed, clothe and watch him.
He shouldn't be executed. What ever happened to an 'eye for and eye?' Have him live out the rest of his life in the dungeon but take out the TV and toilet. Give him two years worth of food and check in on him in 2010.
Yet another story telling us how civilized the western world is... Ha !!!!
Knee-jerk 'throw away the key' responses simply condemn other innocents (and there are or will be others like these). This man needs to be understood, psychologically profiled and studied for the rest of his life so we can spot others like him. How was he made into what he was? Branding people 'monsters' just blinds us to the possibility that the nice guy next door might be doing the same thing. This man needs to be preserved as a lab rat.
I do hope the daughter and her children are re-united soon. They've been everything to each other for so long, it seems cruel to separate them now. I hope they are allowed to grow up together properly, in privacy and dignity now. Our prying eyes weren't there when they needed us most, so let's have the compassion to leave them alone now.
I dont understand how a mother doesnt search where the daughter is or what kind of ignorent people those neighbours are..wake up europe where those human feelings of yours..where ý live when somebody moves to the neighbourhood people visit and say welcome and ask if they need anything..
Good comment Mark. I was just responding to the 'kill him mentality” that is so pervasive here in our peaceful nation.
Greggor says:
'Now that two women have been held captive in dungeons for decades (Natasha 10 yrs and Elisabeth 24)'
1. 10 years is a single decade not decadeS.
2. Natasha was held for 8 years, not even a decade.
Eight years is still horrific. Any time is horrible but don't alter the facts to back up your false statements.
Heidi says:
'I dont understand how a mother doesnt search where the daughter is or what kind of ignorent people those neighbours are..'
You don't understand because you now know what happened to the daughter. We also don't know what the mother did in the past to find her daughter. There is no reason why a mother should suspect her husband is holding their child prisoner in their basement. The daughter was reported missing. Then the mother is told the daughter dropped off a new born baby because she needed help raising it. Again, why would being told such things cause anyone to think they should go look for a secret dungeon in their basement? Just because you now have insight to what was really going on does not mean you would have behaved any different than the mother nor the neighbors.
They should do the same as he did with this MONSTER!!!
Closed in the same cave and raped untill the very end of his life!
Poor girl and her children. It's horrible!
What is wrong with Austrians? First Natascha Kampusch, then the mother in Linz, Upper Austria who locked her three daughters for 7 years and now this. I wonder what is next!?
Back in 1983, what do you think the contractors thought they were building when they poured the concrete and ran the electrical and plumbing? It might be interesting to see the plans that were approved by the building department. Maybe this will be a wake-up call for contractors to think back about what they've built in the past. There are a lot of very private secretive people in the world.
Or, maybe this will be the next media circus to keep our minds distracted from what’s happening around the world.
How awful this is. My heart cries for the victims of this unforgivable crime. I think that this man should be forced to spend the rest of his life in that very same cell he forced his daugther and her children to spend their lives in. I know that is unrealistic, but it would be fitting. Regardless, he should be locked up forever with no parole.
He doesn't deserve to have a moment of freedom ever again.
PLEASE AUSTRIANS, DO THE RIGHT THING AND PUT THIS ANIMAL AWAY FOREVER.
How could a woman watch the addition being built with a BASEMENT and not have any curiosity as to what was in the basement of her own house? Was she not there when the basement and foundation were poured?
I have a question about those so called 'gentlemans vacations' that Fitzel and his pals took in Thailand. Why on earth wouldn't the police be interested in what he did there? He's a known pedophile. I've read that his daughter was eleven years of age when he started molesting her. Also,that part of the world has many known areas that cater to perverts on 'sex vacations'. Why aren't the police questioning what he did there?
he should have to live in a tiny box that he can't fully stand up in plus be electrocuted just enough to suffer but not allow him to die so he can be punished for a long time.
Nightmare story. Austria - Hitler and dungeons? How could they have been so blinded by all of this?
I cannot believe the length this man went to rape his daughter over the years. No sun, no fresh air, 19 years of your life (thats even older than me so if i was her i'd still be in the cramped room) and 24 for the mother, thats 5 years by herself in fear waiting for that door to open and the monster come in to assult her.
Yet i do not believe he should go on death row. No. Because if he did, he would have only left a world where no one wants him, doesn't seem the right punishment.
No. put him in solitary (with no natural light) just like he did to his daughter (whose's life has been terribly ripped away). Only give him bread and water until he dies. Give him no one to talk to, a little mattress on the floor and nothing else. Even though he deserves far less.
This man commited such a terrible crime.
May i hope that even through this Elisabeth and her children may move on through life to find a better one at the end of the tounnel
God bless you Elisabeth and you children.
xxx
Why is there so many 'revenge seeking' posts, as if revenge is going to solve anything?
I can't find words to describe what I feel at this moment.
This man must die slowly and painfully, I have no mercy for the crime
committed. (I am a woman and I have 3 kids )
How terribly, terribly sad. What uncaring ignorance in all the people involved. Why are people so afraid to come out of their comfort zone? 1.The neighbor who says he would see Fritzel hauling barrels of food into the basement at night. 2. The tenant who says he would hear loud banging coming from the basement. 3. The tenants who were told 'never go down to my basement or you will be evicted'. (That alone would have spurred my curiosity. I would have been evicted that day out of curiosity, but maybe Elisabeth would've been found that day as well). 4. What about all of the family she is connected to. Elisabeth has 6 siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and a mother. Why didn't anyone think to look for her? Is joining a cult some type of stupid excuse which allows someone permission to simply disappear. Not one person wanted to find her and talk to her about this 'cult' and to please come back home? And when the children would mysteriously appear on the doorstep with a note. What is up with that? How would the authorities not want to find this woman who is in this cult and who keeps having babies and dropping them on the doorstep. Where is the 'FAMILY'. 'FAMILY' means that we are our brothers keeper this means everyone who is connected to her by blood or not. It is a simple Biblical principle. It means to be concerned about your fellow human beings. Did her brothers and sisters not ask or question her where abouts? Her friends, her teachers, all of the people she was connected to. Not one person cared enough to come out of their comfort zone and question who, what, where, when, why or how? The people she was connected to let her down!
Now, if someone that you know turns up missing, please come out of your comfort zone and start asking questions. When people start showing strange behavior or making strange statements, come out of your comfort zone and question them or the people they are connected to (neighbors, other friends, teachers, co-workers or drop a dime to the authorities. You might cause an unnecessary commotion or you might just be saving someones life! THINK ABOUT IT!!!
This man is horrible!! I cannot believe anyone could be this messed up!!!! And those poor children being locked up in that dungeon... so sad. They are gonna need YEARS and YEARS of therapy.
this man needs to be hung. The electric chair isn't punishment enough!!!!
I couldn't believe when I read he may get 15 years. He needs to be locked up his entire life or better yet killed. Those poor child need closure. As fearful as they must be of him, I'm sure their recovery would be quicker if they knew he was dead or at least if they knew he was behind bars for the rest of his life. This way they could feel safer knowing he can never hurt them again. Regardless of what sentence the courts give him, he will ultimately get his punishment as he burns in hell.
What I cannot understand is how the wife is not accused of any crime. I have read that she claims to have had no knowledge of the family being kept downstairs, but how could she not notice her husband digging a dungeon below their house, and a huge steel door that she could not open? How could she not hear the noises coming from downstairs that other neighbors reported hearing? It is tragic how many people turned their heads when wondering about this man (one neighbor reported seeing him sneaking food by wheelbarrow into the basement at night). If any one of them had bothered to ask a question in the past 24 years, maybe this family could have been saved.
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horrifiedApr 28th, 2008 - 17:16:36
What an incomprehensible, unfathomable, unspeakably monstrous crime. I feel traumatized just reading about it. I can't begin to imagine what Elisabeth and her three children/siblings endured and how they survived. The scope of this tragedy is hard to process. Apalling that this man could subject another human to this hell just to fulfill his sexual urges.
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