House of Horrors

by Nigel Cawthorne

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Introduction

  1 A Living Tomb

  2 Heart of Darkness

  3 The Apple of His Eye

  4 Into the Abyss

  5 Who Knew?

  6 A Family Torn Apart

  7 Holidays from Hell

  8 Into the Light

  9 ‘Is God Up There?’

  10 A Family Reunited

  11 The Monster Speaks

  12 Mother’s Day

  13 Back in the Cellar

  14 The Road to Recovery

  Epilogue

  Postscript

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  By a curious irony, I am writing this book in a basement… but this is not a House of Horrors. Twenty years ago when I moved in, I was told by my then landlord that the converted cellar in Bloomsbury, not far from the British Museum in central London, had once been the studio of the photographer David Bailey. I never checked that out in case it wasn’t true and, as I was familiar with Bailey’s work, I would rather live with the idea that the space had once been inhabited by numerous beautiful models, frequently and pleasingly déshabillé. My then landlord told me that he had bought the basement studio and converted it into five flats. Mine – I have just measured it – is 43 square metres. The cellar that Elisabeth Fritzl and her subterranean family lived in was, by all accounts, 35 square metres. However, the height of her ceiling was an oppressive 1.7m – 5ft 6in – while mine is 2.4m, a dizzying 8ft.

  On the street side, my apartment is below the level of the pavement. But there is a broad walkway in between and light, especially on the sunny summer mornings while I was writing this book, comes pouring in. When the landlord was making the conversion, the council ordered him to dig out the back to allow more light in, so I have a broad patio area and bank planted, after a fashion, with greenery. I overlook this small city garden from the large French windows where I work. These let in so much sunlight that, on sunny days, I have to close the curtains so that I can see the screen of my computer. For Elisabeth Fritzl, this would have been an unimaginable inconvenience. Some days, I put garden furniture out there, open up the umbrella and work outside.

  Although the floor space of my flat is comparable to that of Elisabeth’s cellar, after years of back-breaking excavation, I only have to share the space with one other person – my son. He is 24, born less than two months after 18-year-old Elisabeth disappeared from the world of light and greenery. Although there are only the two of us, we often get on each other’s nerves. This is despite the fact that we have doors on our bedrooms and on the bathroom and lavatory, so we can enjoy some privacy, or lock ourselves away if we are feeling tetchy or antisocial.

  While all basements suffer to some extent from damp and mould, it would be hard to imagine a place more light and airy than my apartment. I have a front-door key and can come and go as I please. Friends, relatives and lovers come round. But despite all these advantages, some days, when I have been working hard at home, I feel a twinge of cabin fever. Come evening time, I need to go out to the restaurant next door, to the swimming pool and steam room in the hotel at the end of the road, or to the pub in the square, just for a change of scenery and some company and conversation. More than a couple of days without some contact with the outside world and I would go stir-crazy.

  Consequently, I find it hard to put myself in Elisabeth’s shoes. Our lives could not be more different. Her tyrannical father stole her life between the ages of 18 and 42 – the years that most people would consider the best of part of their lives. These are the years when most people have adventures, love affairs and indulge in youthful indiscretions that, though they blush about them in middle age, they would not have missed for the world.

  That is certainly true in my case. Between 18 and 42, I travelled much of the world. I had written for newspapers and magazines in the UK and USA, had a handful of books to my name, been married, divorced and returned to a life of philandering, appeared in the dock of the Old Bailey for a youthful indiscretion – I was acquitted, I might add – and testified to a US Senate Select Committee.

  For Elisabeth Fritzl, these same precious years were stolen from her by the one man who ought to love and protect her, who should have allowed her the follies of youth and been there to rescue her, if and when things went wrong. While her father pretended that he was keeping her safe from the dangers of the modern world, he was merely indulging his own selfish lust. Not only did he rob her of her life and freedom, he subjected her to an unimaginable hell of torture, physical violence, intimidation and sexual humiliation.

  He then inflicted this hell on three of the children he sired by her. There are not the words to condemn this man, nor is there any sufficient punishment for what he has done, but this book is not only about the depths of cruelty and vice a man can descend to, it is also a tale of courage. This young woman somehow endured everything her vile tormentor put her through. She suffered years of solitary confinement in the certain knowledge that no one was looking for her or even imagined her fate. With no possibility of escape, the only company she could hope for was her jailer, who would most likely be visiting to rape her once again. Her only contact with the outside world was a man without a scintilla of pity or compassion.

  She faced the terrifying prospect of giving birth alone. And, when the children came, she helped extend her own jail, digging out new rooms with her bare hands. She was also forced to relinquish some of those children. But the ones she kept, she did her best to rear and educate, given the appalling circumstances in which they found themselves. She did not go mad – an astonishing achievement in itself. Somehow, she found the strength to remain sane. And when the opportunity came to free herself and her children, she succeeded.

  By any standard, Elisabeth Fritzl is a remarkable woman. Her ordeal is over, but let’s not forget about her brutal tormentor. He will die in prison or in mental hospital. There is no retribution that he can make or be forced to make, no recompense for what he has done. Instead, let us hope that the world can find some way to give this young woman and her children every pleasure and fulfilment life offers.

  Meanwhile, the world must atone. The people of Elisabeth’s home town of Amstetten and the Austrian authorities failed to notice that she was physically and sexually abused as a child. And when she disappeared, they did not ask the questions necessary to rescue her and thwart her father’s evil plan.

  Around the world, there have been some who have attempted to prove that, after a number of high-profile cases, the imprisonment and abuse of children is a uniquely Austrian phenomenon tied to that country’s Nazi past. Of course, history is a factor, but the abuse of children is not a problem exclusive to Austria. In Britain and America – and just about every other country – there are numerous cases of children being abused or neglected, actions that could have been prevented by the vigilance of neighbours and friends. Sadly, too many of us end up looking the other way.

  Nigel Cawthorne

  Bloomsbury, July 2008

  1

  A LIVING TOMB

  In 1984, two weeks after the end of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, a young woman in a small town in Austria was drugged, dragged into a cellar and repeatedly raped by her own father. This ordeal would not just go on for one day, or one week, but 8,516 days – just a few months short of 24 years. In all that time, she would not see natural light or breathe fresh air. With the exception of her father – her jailer – no one knew what had happened to her.

  And while Elisabeth Fritzl languished in her purpose-built dungeon, the global events of the end of the 20th century inexorably rolled by: the IRA bombing; the Tory conference in Brighton; the assassination of Indira Gandhi; Ronald Reagan�
�s second term; Bhopal; the Sinclair C5; Gorbachev announcing glasnost and perestroika; the end of the British miners’ strike; Live Aid; Boris Becker winning Wimbledon; the race riots on Broadwater Farm Estate; the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger; Chernobyl; the election of former UN General-Secretary Kurt Waldheim, president of Austria, and the revelation of his Nazi past; Argentina’s ‘hand of God’ victory in the World Cup; the marriage of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson; the City of London’s ‘Big Bang’; the AIDS ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ campaign; Mona Lisa; Irangate; the first-ever episode of EastEnders; the Zeebrugge disaster; Spycatcher; the Hungerford massacre; England’s ‘storm of the century’; the Remembrance Day bombing of Enniskillen; the King’s Cross fire; the SAS shootings on Gibraltar; the Piper Alpha disaster; the 1988 Seoul Olympics; the election of George Bush Sr; Lockerbie; the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa on Salman Rushdie; Tiananmen Square; the fall of the Berlin Wall; the US invasion of Panama; Paul Gascoigne’s tears; Colin Powell becoming the first black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Nelson Mandela’s release; the reunification of Germany; the fall of Mrs Thatcher; the First Gulf War; the break-up of the Soviet Union; Boris Yeltsin being elected President of Russia; the break-up of Yugoslavia; the beating of Rodney King; the election of Bill Clinton; Maastricht; Waco; South Africa adopting majority rule; Nelson Mandela becoming president; Rwanda; the siege of Sarajevo; the ‘Supreme Truth’ nerve-gas attack in Tokyo; the OJ Simpson trial; the arrest of Fred and Rosemary West in the Gloucester ‘House of Horrors’ case; ‘mad cow’ disease, the Spice Girls topping the charts; Robbie Williams’ record-breaking world tour; the Taliban taking over in Afghanistan; Tony Blair becoming British Prime Minister; Hong Kong being returned to the Chinese; the death of Princess Diana; the Heaven’s Gate cult committing mass suicide; the Oklahoma City bombing; Kosovo; the Good Friday agreement; al-Qaeda bombing the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; the introduction of the Euro; Pinochet’s arrest in London; Monica Lewinsky; the Columbine High School Massacre; East Timor; Y2K; the Sydney Olympics; neo-Nazi Freedom Party joining the Austrian coalition; the conviction of Harold Shipman; the Internet bubble; George W Bush becoming the 43rd US President, thanks to ‘hanging chads’ in Florida; 9/11; the US and Britain retaliating in Afghanistan; the trial of Slobodan Milosevic; Hugo Chavez coming to power; Chechen rebels taking 763 hostages in a Moscow theatre; the second Gulf War; Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi being placed under house arrest; the publication of the Da Vinci Code; the space shuttle Columbia exploding; Saddam Hussein being caught, tried and executed; the train bombings in Madrid; the Athens Olympics; Chechen terrorists taking 1,200 schoolchildren hostage in Beslan; Abu Ghraib; Guantanamo Bay; a tsunami hitting south-east Asia; the death of Pope John Paul II; London’s 11/7 bombings; Israel’s evacuation of the Gaza strip; Angela Merkel becoming German Chancellor; Elton John’s civil partnership with David Furnish; Danish Islamic cartoons causing riots in the Middle East; Hurricane Katrina; Austria’s first girl-in-a-cellar, Natascha Kampusch, being released after six years in captivity; Nicholas Sarkozy election as President of France and marriage to Italian model Carla Bruni; Live 8; Tony Blair standing down; the Spice Girls tour (again); the assassination of Benazir Bhutto; the killings in Kenya; John McCain securing the Republican presidential nomination; Barack Obama securing the Democratic nomination; the Virginia Tech shootings; then, three days later …

  On Saturday, 19 April 2008, a young woman arrived by ambulance at the Mostviertel Red Cross hospital in the small town of Amstetten in Lower Austria, 75 miles west of Vienna. She was in a coma and no one could tell what was wrong with her. An hour later, 73-year-old Josef Fritzl turned up at the hospital. He said the girl was his 19-year-old granddaughter Kerstin. The unconscious teenager, he said, had been left outside his house.

  Apparently, this was not an unusual event in the Fritzl household. Fritzl told anyone who would listen that his daughter Elisabeth had run off to a mysterious religious sect in August 1984 when she was just 18. In the 24 years since then, she had not been seen by her family or friends, but she had written to them. Seemingly unable to cope with motherhood, Elisabeth had left three babies outside the family home with notes begging her parents to look after them – at least, that was Josef Fritzl’s story. He and his wife Rosemarie, now in her late sixties, had taken them in and, in due course, adopted one and officially fostered the other two.

  The patient, Fritzl’s granddaughter, was having convulsions and was bleeding from the mouth. She had lost nearly all her teeth, was severely malnourished and deathly pallid. According to the doctor who treated her, ‘She hung in a state between life and death.’ She would remain that way for weeks.

  Despite her shocking state, her grandfather seemed unconcerned. Instead of staying at the hospital – at least long enough to get a diagnosis – or waiting until the girl’s condition stabilised, Fritzl rushed away, adding somewhat puzzlingly that the doctors should not call the police. He left a note from her mother, which he said he had found with the unconscious child. It read, ‘Wednesday, I gave her aspirin and cough medicine for the condition. Thursday, the cough worsened. Friday, the coughing gets even worse. She has been biting her lip as well as her tongue. Please, please help her! Kerstin is really terrified of other people, she was never in a hospital. If there are any problems please ask my father for help, he is the only person that she knows.’

  There was a curious postscript to the note, addressed to the stricken girl, ‘Kerstin – please stay strong, until we see each other again! We will come back to you soon!’

  This seemed an unlikely sentiment from a woman who, the medical staff had been told, was unable and unwilling to look after her own children; a woman who had simply dumped her children outside her parent’s three-storey house at 40 Ybbsstrasse in Amstetten.

  Dr Albert Reiter, who was in charge of the case, said, ‘I could not believe that a mother who wrote such a note and seemed so concerned would just vanish. I raised the alarm with the police and we launched a TV appeal for her to get in touch.’

  Kerstin’s condition deteriorated. The fits continued, she lapsed in and out of consciousness, and her immune system did not seem to be working. The doctors needed to know more about the medical history of their mysterious patient, but the appeal for her mother to come forward brought no response. A week went by, during which time Kerstin deteriorated. Eventually, she was placed on a ventilator; her kidneys had stopped working. She was on a dialysis machine and was being kept in a medically induced coma, yet still no mother appeared.

  Elisabeth Fritzl, however, had seen the TV appeal and suddenly turned up in Amstetten as if returning from the dead. This was no surprise to the family and those who knew them. Around Christmas 2007, another letter arrived from Elisabeth, telling her parents that she intended to leave the cult and return home. ‘If all goes well, I hope to be back within six months,’ she wrote. Now, prematurely, she had returned.

  She, too, was in an appalling condition – deathly pale and prematurely aged. This was explained by the cult’s bizarre ascetic lifestyle, which also seemed to have had a shockingly deleterious effect on Kerstin.

  On Saturday, 26 April 2008, Elisabeth Fritzl appeared on the streets of Amstetten for the first time in 24 years. She was seen with her father and was heading towards the hospital, on her way to see her sick daughter. When they reached the grounds of the hospital, the police, tipped off that they were on their way, detained them. Kerstin was in such a bad condition that they wanted to question her mother with a view to bringing charges of child neglect. Father and daughter were taken to the police headquarters where they were questioned separately. At first, Elisabeth stuck to her father’s story that she had been in a cult, but, from the start, the police sensed there was something very odd about her. Although she was only 42, she had grey hair, no teeth and a morbidly pallid complexion. She looked like a woman in her sixties, who had been locked up in an institution. It was also quite plain that she was terrified.

>   Suddenly, she said that she would tell them everything, provided they could guarantee she and her children would never have to see her father again. This was a shock to the detectives. Fritzl was a pillar of the community; a retired electrical engineer and the owner of a number of properties in the town, he had lived there all his life. He had brought up three of Elisabeth’s abandoned children and had even taken her critically ill daughter to the hospital after she had, apparently, neglected the child. But Elisabeth then told them a story that beggared belief.

  She said she had not run away to join a cult and her father was not the caring family man that he pretended to be. A strict disciplinarian, he had been beating her brutally from the time she was old enough to walk. The sexual assaults had begun when she was 11. She then said that, when she was 18, he had drugged her, dragged her to a concealed cellar in his house, raped her, and had continued to do so for the next 24 years. The rapes had resulted in seven children. For nearly a quarter-of-a-century, she and three of the children had lived in a windowless hell-hole beneath the family home. The children had never seen the outside world or breathed fresh air; they had never known freedom, nor had had any contact with wider society. The only other person they had seen was their jailer, a man who would alternately play with them and terrorise them.

  She said that he told them that the doors to the cellar were electrified and, if they tried to escape, they would be gassed. He raped their mother in front of them and yet, with the boxes of groceries and meals he shoved through a hatch, he was their only lifeline. The good family man of Amstetten was, in truth, a brutal monster, and the respectable family home at 40 Ybbsstrasse was, in fact, a House of Hrrors.

  All this was hard to believe, but the police could not put aside the evidence of their own eyes. Elisabeth was in such a shocking state that she had clearly gone through some terrible ordeal – possibly the one she had just described.