THE AUSTRIAN CELLARS AND GIRL PRISONERS

 There is a connexion between wine and women, poets and artists have said so long before some crazy Austrians started  keeping young women in cellars for years together just as wines are preserved.  A Josef Fritz is being tried in the court for keeping his young daughter in the basement cellar of his house for about 24 years.  I do not wish to go in to the sordid details of his beastly act. They are all over in the net and newspapers.

A somewhat similar incidence of keeping a 10 year old girl in cellar had been reported in 1988 in Vienna,Austria. The name of that unfortunate girl was Natasha Kampuchea  One morning she went to school and never returned. Some eyewitnesses said that she was found dragged into a white minibus by two persons.A massive hunt by police followed and about 800 mini bus were examined including the one in which the abduction took place.The owner of that particular minibus explained that on that morning he was sitting in his home.The police could not find anything suspicious either. His name was Priklopil and the girl was remaining locked in a basement room of his house.

In the early period she was not allowed out of the room of about 100 square feet.Gradually she could go to other rooms with his permission. He provided her with books and she learned from the books he gave her. She lived there for more than eight years. In 2006 she ran from the house while he was attending phone and sought the help of a neighbor who alerted police.The culprit committed suicide on knowing that she was with the police.

As Natasha had lived with him for so long, she did not hate him the way we would expect. She also found a positive side for her abduction, for, she said that since she could not mingle with other students she got the advantage of having no bad habits like smoking ,drinking etc. It meant that she saw the whole thing as an advantage rather than a deprivation.

Natasha has not so far revealed her life with Priklopil. She angrily avoided answering critical, pointed questions from the press and others on the matter. However it seems that she has not been molested by him for she considers him as a father figure.  It is also not sure. There are mysteries about Natasha's mind, why she did she take so long to run away since she had many opportunities before.? Why she takes the whole issue positively and still chose to ran off to the police ?

It is a fit case for study by psychologists.

Now she owns the house where she was imprisoned and she intends to keep it as such in memory of her formative years.She wrote a book named '3096 days' narrating her life in the abductor's house.








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