When suspicions cropped up in the media that I had given birth to a baby while in captivity, and the baby had been buried either dead or alive, depending on which version you read, the behaviour became particularly bad. The rumour first started in April 2008 during the piecemeal publication of confidential dossiers. Now, at the end of 2011, when everything appeared to be over, the rumour resurfaced. A number of the politicians from the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) opined that “there were strong indications” that I might have given birth to a baby while in the kidnapper’s dungeon. It was possible that it was buried in the garden, or was still living at an unknown location.”27
Giving rise to these claims were a lock of hair and a small pamphlet on the anatomy and care of infants that the police had found among my belongings in the dungeon. The pamphlet was nothing more than something to read, just like my Julia novels, the encyclopaedias, the newspapers, comics or adventure and science fiction books that the kidnapper brought to my dungeon. The lock of hair was mine. I had cut it off before the kidnapper shaved my head so that I could remember what my hair felt like and what colour it had had.
Although the investigating authority had fully examined the garden of the house in Strasshof with probes and had naturally failed to find the remains of a child, rumours that I was potentially a “baby murderer” faded but gradually. And although the examinations at the Vienna General Hospital unmistakably proved that I had never been pregnant at any time, the fact-finding committee in Parliament was to re-examine the issue. A number of publications put the story on their front page yet again. When I unsuspectingly left my flat early one morning while this was going on, an older woman rushed over to me and smacked me on the head with a rolled up newspaper saying, “Where did you bury that poor baby, you pig?!” After attacking me, she tossed the paper carelessly on the ground and stomped off. The headline on the cover page provided plenty of information as to which article the lady had apparently just finished reading.
On the Internet I was called a “whore”. They said that what I really needed was “someone to really give it to me” because Priklopil, that uptight prude, had apparently not been up to the task. “She would certainly like that, that slut!” On the metro people would whisper behind me that I should be locked away so that the public would be spared from having to look at my face. I received letters, in which men spun pages-long fantasies about “obedient women” who they wanted to humiliate and treat with the utmost of contempt. These were attitudes that I had never experienced while in captivity in this way. And I had naïvely believed that I had been subject to the singularity of one single diseased mind.
On good days I was able to dismiss all of the humiliations. They didn’t really mean me. They were seeking an outlet for their perverse fantasies. On bad days it frightened me so much that I simply hid myself in my apartment. I did not answer the phone, did not open the door, no matter who was ringing the bell.
This contempt for women, the general lack of respect and propensity to violence toward others, coupled with a bizarre idea of (repressed) sexuality, the abuse fantasies and perhaps even terrible experiences of this kind are still a taboo subject in our society. Awareness for and attention to these issues has certainly grown in the wake of large-scale scandals that even the church has undergone in the last several years. But taking an important and clear eyed look at the overarching structures, as well as possible cover-up operations in the church and – as has been mentioned in my case – at so-called pornography rings potentially behind such crimes, as well as concentrating on the big picture equally and very conveniently distorts our view of the small picture. The everyday extremes in families in our immediate environment, in our neighbourhoods, in public. We train our gaze on them when curiosity drives us to, and we look away when we’re afraid of being unable to cope with what we see there. However, the same wolf who devours the little lambs can also mingle among the flock undetected in sheep’s clothing.
In my case it was clear who the real wolf was. Not to the outside world, not to the neighbourhood and his immediate environment. But to me. Over the course of my captivity he had gone from kidnapper to the only person I had a close relationship with, despite me never losing sight of his crime. He was the man who robbed me of my family, my childhood and adolescence. Over the years he became an opponent that I came to increasingly meet on equal footing as a result of the specific relationship between kidnapper and victim.
I was not on equal footing with the “wolves” that crossed my path after my escape. I couldn’t be. They pretended to be rescuers, working toward uncovering the mysteries of the case, and were equipped with enormous power and reach. They instrumentalized and were instrumentalized themselves in turn. I was transformed from victim to a potential (co-)criminal, a liar.
And so it was that errors in the investigation that had given rise to actual questions were dealt with relatively swiftly and receded into the background. For example ignoring statements made by eyewitnesses, or tips such as the one provided by the canine police officer who knew of a strange man who seemed like someone who would commit such crime. A serious follow-up of that clue might possibly have changed my situation. Although even an inspection of the house and property with sniffer dogs just after my abduction would likely not have resulted in finding me. Access to my dungeon was too perfectly concealed, and the room built for me by the kidnapper was too far below ground and behind walls that were far too thick. His precautionary measures were too perfect, starting with the white delivery van filled with construction debris when the police questioned him in the scope of a large-scale search, including the shaving of my head and the removal of garbage from the house, which was not disposed of in his own garbage container, but in public garbage containers across a wide radius so that nobody could find traces of me.
What remained: A rumour mill that could not be backed up with any kind of evidence. When asked, the gentlemen responded evasively and even cryptically by pointing to their confidentiality obligations concerning ongoing investigations or by complaining that the investigation was being impeded. Because the whole truth was being covered up, and important documents and facts were being kept from them: once everything had finally come to light, “a number of people would end up losing face, first and foremost Natascha Kampusch herself”. But achieving such a feat was not that easy, as Mr. Adamovich put it, “You try bringing down an icon!”28
That seemed to be what they were aiming at. Only: Why did my statements, why did the truth finally have to be refuted?
It was clear what was to be brought to light. “We mustn’t forget one thing. It was an abduction without any demands for ransom, and there was no child custody dispute going on in the background. What do we have left? The sexual component. (…) It goes without saying that society not only has the right, but also an interest in such matters if a potential second paedophile is running around free. Particularly if there are a number of indications that (…) a paedophilia ring is possibly receiving a steady supply of material.”29
How similar the statements are. That was three years after the open letter to the Austrian daily Österreich. In the meantime the case had been closed (January 2010), another parliamentary fact-finding committee had been formed (December 2011), and one month before the Rzeszut interview with News the rumour of the “Kampusch-Priklopil baby” had once again veered off in a bizarre direction. A police detective had appeared in a school in Laxenburg30, ostensibly to educate the children on road safety. The teacher was struck speechless when he presented a photograph and asked for items with the DNA of the girl in the picture. When questioned by the school principal, he reported to have been hired to look for the daughter of Ms. Kampusch. The underlying suspicion was that I had given the baby to the sister of Priklopil’s friend Ernst H., who raised the child. After the incident she filed a complaint with the police and actually had genetic testing done, which unambiguously demonstrated that she was the mother. Nobody spared any thought a
s to the impact of pursuing this conspiracy theory on the mother, the daughter or even her classmates.
Circumstantial evidence that the police detective may not have acted entirely on his own accord, but rather in connection with retired Supreme Court judge Rzeszut, were conclusively debated in court in early summer 2015. The matter at hand concerned accusations of false testimony. Initially Rzeszut had said that he did not know the detective at all, but later admitted that he had met him twice at a café, nothing more. An examination of telephone records painted an entirely different picture: several instances of contact prior and subsequent to the incident in Laxenburg. When questioned, he said that he might have had “a mental tunnel” and that given the “host of telephone calls” he was unable for the life of him “to remember every minor telephone call”.
The judge was very understanding, “I believe that you should have the benefit of the doubt that you forgot to mention it.” And moreover, “I am sorry that you have had to be subjected to this.”31
*
It would‘ve been nice for me to hear something similar at least once from somebody sitting in a similar position. Instead, the matter dragged on. In June 2012 the decision was made to completely reopen the “Kampusch case” once again, this time to reach out to outside specialists for help. Cold case experts from the FBI and the German Federal Criminal Office (BKA) were deployed, spending weeks sifting through thousands of files that first had to be translated for the American officials. Three quarters of a year later the experts confirmed that police had failed to follow up on a number of clues, that Priklopil had acted alone, that he had no connections to ominous pornography rings and that he had actually committed suicide.
After several years and innumerable detours the only thing left was what we had from the very beginning. There was a special broadcast on television where German criminal experts presented their findings. Political leaders and legal experts were also invited. When questioned on the cold case specialists’ findings a politician from the far-right Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) said, “I think that if Ms. Kampusch were to in fact feel the need one day to perhaps tell the whole truth - and it has been proven that she did not always tell the whole truth everywhere at times – this may naturally result in continued follow-up investigations.”32
It would appear that nobody will ever allow the case to be closed. But arguments or truth are simply no defence against conspiracy theories. The insanity lives on.
Epilogue
25 years of my life and still
I’m trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination
I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means
(...)
And I try
Oh my god do I try
I try all the time
In this institution
(...)
And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
What’s going on?33
A while ago I heard that song on the radio once again and it reminded me of how important it was for me and my cousin, with whom I spent a great deal of time with as a child. We almost ended up fighting about who liked the song more and who had heard it more often.
I‘ve always been able to lose myself and then find myself again in music and in many a song text. During my captivity there were some days where I screamed the lines from the song “You don’t own me. I’m not just one of your many toys. You don’t own me” filling the space in my dungeon in an effort to bolster my morale. On other days I laid in a ball on my bed, only able to whimper, “Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t put me on display, don’t try to change me, don’t tie me down.” That very same song also contains the words “I’m free and I love to be free, to live my life in the way I want”.34 Those lines gave me something to hold onto, and they were a promise for the future. Finally able to live my life, just as I had always imagined. In the last ten years that was the greatest gift that I have given myself: Freedom. The joy at having come through this difficult time gave me strength. I was so full of energy and drive, and wanted to do everything all at once, to make all of my dreams come true, if not in the next two minutes, then at least in the next two years. Even as a child I was highly driven to take control of my own life. And I often imagined what it would be like to be an adult. Then I would do something that would amaze everybody, and I would surpass even myself. As a child I lacked the self-confidence that I projected on my “adult ego” during captivity, that I would someday take myself by the hand and lead myself to freedom. In my thoughts I was always free, and ten years ago I actually succeeded in overcoming the walls of my captivity. My past impacts my life today inasmuch as it has naturally left its mark on me and given me a certain strength and ability to reflect. During my eight and a half years of captivity I learned to make the best of my situation, however impossible it may seem. I have tried not to repay evil with evil, to avoid allowing myself to be destroyed by negative energies and to remain human. Even back then it helped me to keep up an inner dialogue with myself. First it was for lack of anybody else to talk to, then to satisfy a deeper need. I’m very aware of myself. I see myself and try to have a very clear overview of my inner workings. Sometimes I gaze directly into the abyss. That can be shocking, even with other people, but these kinds of depths are part of you. With the help of therapy, I am trying to cleanse my psyche, my mind and my soul and to question things. I’m trying to give my head and my gut the necessary space to navigate a balance between the two.
I have been able to gain valuable experience in the last ten years in freedom. Wonderful, but also very trying experiences. Sometimes I have woken up and asked myself what is actually “going on” in the song sung by the 4 Non Blondes. In some phases of my life I did not have the feeling that I had anything under control. The despair and powerlessness I have felt have in some cases done more to undermine me than the abuses that I was subjected to by the kidnapper.
The most difficult of these was coming to terms with my story and the reactions to it. Coming to terms with all of my perceptions of the world and the emotions that these have triggered in me and that I have triggered in others. Coming to terms with the expectations, hopes and disappointments. In these last several years I have sometimes felt like a wall, speckled and painted over with all sorts of paints and coverings, until in the end I was unrecognizable even to myself.
Most people I have met, either from my family or complete strangers, had a version of me in their heads. Everybody had different pictures that were projected on me. Either in an attempt to radically separate themselves from me and reject my kidnapping and my imprisonment by rejecting me. Or they saw themselves reflected in me in some way. This reflection is something that we do all the time, every day. It’s part of how we coexist with others in society. While in captivity I had only to meet and reflect the needs of one single person. I managed to engage with him without losing track of myself. After my escape I was completely overwhelmed at having to meet the needs, expectations and attributions of a wide variety of people. I believed I had to meet them, I had to understand and accept what other people thought was right. What path they thought was right for me without being able to recognize where that would lead me. Now this sounds a bit abstract, but it’s possible to picture it this way. One person tells you turn left, while the other says turn right, and a third person tells you that it’s best not to go anywhere at all.
In the midst of all of this – in most cases well-intentioned – advice from others, there was a time where I lost myself a little bit. And I had sworn to myself that I would remain authentic. That was not all that easy, because I was caught between so many other people’s interests and motives, pulling me in different directions and changing over time. In th
e last several years a wide variety of forces have tried to appropriate my story. Marlene Streeruwitz predicted back in 2006 that precisely this mechanism would come into play, shortly after my first interview:
A failure to cope everywhere. A society shows itself in its ability to only express need or admiration. Envy and idealization must be added to the proffered story, thereby taking possession of it. The story as told undergoes a rewrite as soon as it is being told. In rejection or aversion. In this way, the story belongs to everybody. The listeners, while listening, take the place of the storyteller, filling the story with their own associations and connections. (…) Here we are completely exposed to this specific victim who is Natascha Kampusch (…), but each of us has a vague feeling of being a victim ourselves. (…) Assumptions are made. We project. The inability to think “victim” (…) [results in the fact that] being a victim is a condition that we prefer to keep secret so no counter-narrative is incited that robs the victim a second time.”35
The experts analyzing my life have included journalists, who have filled in the gaps, who were looking to, or were expected to expand on my story to improve circulation figures; politicians seeking to burnish their image as someone who gets to the bottom of things; representatives of the judicial system and law enforcement, who have been positioned in opposition to each other; self-proclaimed unveilers of “the whole truth”; etc. Caught in the middle was the public that gradually no longer knew what to think. Of me, and the entire case, and over time preferred in their haste, so to speak, to meet me with rejection rather than understanding.
This was very difficult to take on an everyday basis. At the beginning I wondered every time what these people now thought of me, what they saw in me, what they know, what caused the coldness in their eyes.
I have spent – or have had to spend – a great deal of time, also in therapy, in accepting the idea that not everything that happens has directly to do with me as a person or my character. But rather that my story has slowly become unmoored from the reality as it actually took place and as I experienced it. How it has become gradually separate from my life and my lived reality. In the meantime I have made up my mind that many new developments and revelations and the reactions to them are no longer of interest to me. Must not be of any interest to me, otherwise it will end up running me down in the end. I do not have to drink every cup of hemlock that somebody hands me or even feel guilty when I push it away.
10 Years of Freedom Page 17