Secrets in the Cellar

by John Glatt

  “We used to go to the Belami disco on her road, Ybbsstrasse, but she was rarely allowed to see us.”

  In summer 1981, 15-year-old Elisabeth Fritzl left Amstetten Technical School with average grades. On the last day of school, after getting her report card, she said good-bye to the Goetzinger twins, who were going off to Tyrol to study catering. Elisabeth complained that she wanted to be a cosmetician, but her father was insisting she work at his guest house restaurant.

  In a school photograph taken shortly before she left, a fresh-faced Elisabeth is pictured with the twins, her classmates and teachers. The beautiful teenager, wearing a plain starched white blouse, stands out from the other girls with her enigmatic smile.

  “I was very sad to say good-bye to Elisabeth, after we’d become so close,” said Christa. “We promised to write to each other, but we lost contact. That would be the last time I would ever see her.”

  A few months later, Josef Fritzl used his business connections to find Elisabeth a job as a waitress at a local highway rest stop. For the next three years she learned the hospitality business while working at the busy Rosenberger diner at Strengberg, on the main A1 Autobahn, linking Vienna to Salzberg.

  It was just thirteen miles away from Amstetten, and part of a chain of eleven motorway restaurants dotted throughout Austria. Fritzl reportedly thought it excellent training so she could prepare him meals when the dungeon was completed.

  She was first sent on a two-month initiation course at a technical college in Waldegg, a small town 100 miles southeast of Amstetten. Reluctantly her father allowed her to share a dormitory below the kitchen with the other female students.

  Elisabeth was overjoyed to finally get away from her father’s clutches and his constant sexual demands. She felt liberated, praying he would let her finally start living her own life.

  Over the two months she studied there, Elisabeth made several close friends, whom she confided in about her father’s abuse.

  “Sissy always wanted to run away,” said a fellow trainee waitress. “She was always afraid of her father, and she told her friends about that.”

  After completing the initiation, Elisabeth moved back to the family home in Amstetten, where life continued as before. Each day she took the twenty-minute bus ride to the Strengberg Rosenberger restaurant, always putting on a cheerful face for her customers, however much turmoil she was going through inside.

  Like the other rest stop staff, Elisabeth wore traditional Austrian dirndl dress, while serving coffee and snacks to customers on the busy Autobahn. She was popular with the other employees, occasionally going out after work with them to local bars and nightclubs.

  “She was so quiet and nice to everyone,” remembered Franz Hochwallner, who worked as a cook at the restaurant while Elisabeth was there.

  None of them dreamed of the unspeakable horrors that awaited her most nights after she got the bus home.

  The year 1982 marked the fifteenth anniversary of Josef Fritzl’s rape conviction. It was officially expunged, in accordance with the strict Austrian privacy law, leaving him with a clean record.

  A few months later he was arrested again and charged with arson after another suspicious fire at his Mondsee Lake guest house. At the police station, he was photographed clean-shaven before being booked. But after spending a short time in Unterach prison, he was released because of lack of any evidence against him.

  “Everyone thought he set fire to the place,” recalled Beate Schmidinger, who owned a café nearby, “because we knew he had money trouble.”

  In any case, from now on, at least in the eyes of the Austrian authorities, Josef Fritzl was a citizen beyond reproach, with a clean slate. It was as if he had never crawled in through the window that 1967 night in Linz, savagely raping a young nurse at knifepoint. Now, under the Austrian legal system, he would enjoy the same privileges as any other upright citizen.

  CHAPTER 6

  Escape

  On January 28, 1983, Elisabeth Fritzl and another Rosenberger waitress went out to a bar, after finishing their shifts. After a few drinks, Elisabeth broke down in tears, telling how her father had been raping her since she was 11. Describing her home life as “hell,” she said she had to get out.

  That night, the two 17-year-olds decided to run away together.

  “I knew Sissy was being raped by her father,” said Josef Leitner, an Amstetten waiter who had known Elisabeth at Amstetten Technical College, and would later become one of her father’s tenants. “I had a good friend from school who was really close to her. She told me what a monster Josef was and what he had done to Sissy. She could not take it to live at home anymore, and tried to escape . . . she packed her bags and left.”

  According to Leitner, Elisabeth and their mutual friend, whose identity he would not reveal, spent several days in Linz before going to Vienna, a big city where there would be less chance of them being caught. They found a cheap apartment in the Hartlgasse 42 district, and went into hiding.

  When Josef Fritzl learned she had run away, he was livid, and reported her missing, prompting an Interpol hunt. He also dispatched his son Harald—who was close to Elisabeth—to search for her in the Vienna red-light district. He was petrified that Elisabeth was free, and might now betray him as a sexual predator.

  Eventually, after three weeks on the run, police picked up the teenage girls at a Vienna party, after neighbors complained about the noise. They were taken to a police station, where Josef Fritzl collected his daughter the next morning and drove her home.

  “Josef was furious,” said Leitner. “Sissy was banned from having anything to do with my friend again. Her mother also made sure of that. She watched her carefully to make sure they were kept apart.”

  From then on, Josef Fritzl would always describe his daughter as his black sheep, an unruly troubled child with alcohol and substance abuse problems.

  By running away, Elisabeth had unwittingly provided him with the ammunition he would later need to explain her sudden disappearance, when he was finally ready to bring her down into the dungeon.

  For the first few weeks after her return, Josef Fritzl didn’t touch his teenage daughter, but eventually he couldn’t control himself.

  Later, she would tell police how she had decided to stick it out, submitting to his sexual demands for the time being. There was only another eighteen months left in her hospitality training program, she reasoned. Then she would be free to leave home and become a chef, never having to see her father again.

  That summer, Elisabeth spent a few weeks working as a waitress in a Tyrolean motel in Angath, 185 miles west of Amstetten. A photograph taken at the motel shows the pretty 17-year-old, wearing a red-and-white traditional Austrian dirndl dress, looking like she’d come straight out of The Sound of Music.

  But her colleagues remember her as being a troubled girl, with an alcohol problem.

  “Sissy was the wildest party girl I have ever met,” a fellow worker named Heidi would later tell News of the World. “She was always sneaking out the window of our dorm at night to meet up with boys. And then she would stay out all night drinking, dancing and having fun.”

  According to Heidi, Elisabeth often stayed out all night, turning up the following morning unfit to work.

  “She partied hard and worked as little as she could,” she said. “She could down more beer, schnapps and wine than most.”

  Eventually her boss threatened to fire her and send her back to Amstetten if she didn’t calm down.

  “I’ll never forget the sudden change in her,” said Heidi. “She burst into tears. She told me, ‘If they really send me home, I will run away immediately, because I cannot stand being at home anymore.’ ”

  After that, she stopped drinking, completing her assignment in Angath before returning to Amstetten and her old job at the Rosenberger restaurant.

  By the fall of 1983, Josef Fritzl was putting the finishing touches to his dungeon, now six years in the making. The ever-resourceful 48-year-old engin
eer had single-handedly created an engineering marvel of unparalleled evil.

  He had recently rented an industrial winch, attaching it to the roof of his three-story house. It was positioned directly over the cellar to hoist massive concrete blocks into place, turning his bunker into an impenetrable fortress.

  After devising a crude ventilation system to pump oxygen into the network of rooms, he brought in a fridge, gas cooker and toilet, so the dungeon would be self-sufficient. He also wired it for electricity, installed a gas furnace to burn rubbish and lined the walls and ceilings with cork and other soundproofing materials, ensuring that no one upstairs could hear anything down below.

  Always thrifty, Fritzl kept a careful watch on every cent he spent on his dark obsession, buying second-hand wherever possible. He was intensely proud of his creation, and would later describe in detail how he had constructed it.

  “I got a really heavy concrete-and-steel door,” he recounted, “that worked with an electric motor and a remote control that I used to get into the cellar. It needed a number code to open and close.

  “I then plastered the walls, added something to wash in and a small toilet, a bed and a cooking ring, as well as a fridge, electricity and lights.”

  Over the entire six years it took him to complete the dungeon, not one of his neighbors, tenants or anybody else ever questioned what he was doing.

  “Perhaps some people did notice,” he said later. “But they really did not care—why should they? At the end of the day, the cellar of my house belongs to me. It is my kingdom only I can enter. That is what everyone knew who lived in the area. That includes my wife, my children and my tenants. And none of them ever managed to force their way into my kingdom, or asked me what I did there.”

  When he was finally ready to have it officially inspected by the Amstetten planning authority, he cemented all entries closed, concealing the full extent of his excavations. He had also managed to dig a passage through to the original 1890 cellar under the main house, which he would eventually use to enlarge the dungeon.

  On July 26, 1983, a team of planning inspectors visited his cellar. Finding nothing untoward, they rubber-stamped their approval for his “nuclear shelter,” signing off on a generous state grant toward its construction.

  But it would be another year of final preparations before the always-patient Josef Fritzl would finally trick his daughter Elisabeth into going down there.

  On April 16, 1984, Elisabeth Fritzl celebrated her 18th birthday, and was full of hope for the future. She had almost completed her three-year catering course, enthusiastically making plans to move in with her sister Ulrike, and finally get away from her father forever.

  Over the last few months, he had somewhat relaxed his domination over her, and Elizabeth had spent time in an apartment away from home. She had a new set of friends, and was especially proud of her new fashionable pageboy haircut. She had started going out to discos and bars at night, and had started drinking again.

  She also had a steady boyfriend she had met at a catering course, and was heartbroken when he moved to another town to continue his studies. Outwardly she was just like any other teenage girl, but inside she still bore the open scars of her father’s seven years of savage sexual abuse.

  On May 9—a few weeks before she was due to take her final catering exams—Elisabeth wrote to an old friend and former student named Ernst. Apparently, she had confided in him about her father’s abuse, and was replying to a “nice long” letter he had recently sent her.

  Basically, I’m doing pretty fine. Sometimes I get pains and I feel sick again. I’m supposed to be off sick at the moment, but I am completely stressed out. My nerves are not in good shape either.

  Then she went on to discuss some old friends from a course they had both attended, including the one she was having a difficult long-distance relationship with.

  I’m only in contact with [name withheld] still. He went into the next hospitality class for cooks and waiters. I’ve been dating him since the course. Sometimes there are problems because he is from Enzesfeld-Lindabrunn. This is very far from my place and this is why I am very sad.

  She then asked Ernst to keep his “fingers crossed,” as she was applying for a job outside Amstetten.

  After the exams, I’m moving in with my sister and her boyfriend. As soon as I’ve moved I will send you my new address . . . You could come and visit me with your friends if you want to.

  I had my hair cut . . . layered on the sides and on the fringe. At the back I want to let it grow long.

  She then asked Ernst about his home life, and how tolerant his parents were.

  “Do you have parties when your parents are at home, too?” she wanted to know.

  You are a crazy guy. I have a sensitive question I want to ask. I’d like to know if we’re going to stay friends when you have a girlfriend? Most of the time friendships break up because of that, and it is very important to me.

  Then Elisabeth discussed her close relationship with her brother Harald, who had been sent to bring her back from Vienna a year earlier.

  If you can believe it, I deal with boys better than girls. Girls are not as trustworthy as boys. Probably that’s because I was around my brother from when I was a little child. I am very proud of my brother, who is now 21 years old. I know his problems and he knows mine, and I wouldn’t say anything bad about him.

  Three weeks later, Elisabeth wrote another letter to Ernst on notepaper, decorated with a dancing girl in a yellow dress. She was still recovering after a late night of drinking with her “crew,” but expressing optimism for the future.

  “Hello Ernst,” she began.

  It is now already half-past-ten and I’m lying in bed. Of course I went out Saturday. Can you imagine how hammered I was? At first we went to a couple of clubs. At about 5:00 A.M. we all went to my place to get a coffee, because we’d had so much fun. They are really cool. And they all slept at my place. That was a mess. It took me half-a-day to clean up the flat.

  Then she wrote about her job, saying she looked forward to her upcoming two days off.

  That’s when I go swimming, play tennis or even football. I like listening to music and daydreaming. But if life consists just of dreams, well I don’t really know about that.

  Then she signed the letter “S,” telling Ernst,

  Stay safe, keep being a good boy. Don’t drink too much.

  Waiting patiently in the wings, Josef Fritzl was well aware of his daughter’s new set of friends and her drinking. And although he hated her going out and having a good time with boys, he cunningly knew that the reputation she was now getting in Amstetten as a wild girl would prove very useful.

  He had now almost finished the dungeon, and his final task was to winch the huge sliding three-foot-by-two-foot steel door frame into the cellar. He then sprayed it with liquid concrete. When it dried, it would weigh 660 pounds, and seal off his prison from the outside world.

  Now everything was in place, and he was ready to make his move.

  CHAPTER 7

  Brief Encounter

  In early June, Elizabeth went to Waldegg on a two-month catering course. She would take her final exams at the end of the intensive training program, and already had an offer of a good waitress job in Linz, if she got good grades.

  An 18-year-old student cook named Andreas Kruzik, was immediately attracted to the beautiful young girl, striking up a conversation with her.

  “I saw her in the school yard for the first time,” he remembered. “[She was] a pretty girl, but serious and withdrawn.”

  Over the first weeks of the course they became a couple, soon falling in love. And the more time they spent together, the more relaxed Elisabeth became in his company.

  “I noticed that she was slowly opening up,” he said, “and started to show an interest in me.”

  At the school the sexes were strictly segregated, and any male student caught in a female dormitory would be expelled immediately.

  “We wer
e a couple,” he said. “But it was not so simple to be intimate, because such things were not allowed in the school. And there were only a few opportunities to make out.”

  Eventually the couple found a quiet place in the forest where they would not be disturbed. They would sneak off together, spending hours kissing and talking about their lives.

  “We could be close and gentle to each other,” said Andreas. “She was very tender, but also very timid.”

  After all the years of violent sexual attacks from her father, Elisabeth could not bring herself to have sex, pulling back at the last moment.

  “We never slept with each other,” he recalled. “She did not want to—or was not able to.”

  They also took day trips to Vienna, on one memorable occasion seeing the hit Broadway musical West Side Story.

  During their month together, Elisabeth sometimes spoke of her family and her miserable home life.

  “She really confided in me,” said Andreas. “I knew that she was under pressure from her parents, and that she ran away from home when she was fourteen or fifteen. She was closer to some of her siblings than others, and there was a trusted sister who she stayed with often.”

  One time, she spoke of her father and his controlling ways, without mentioning his sexual abuse.

  “[She] said she had a very strict father,” he recalled. “He had got her a waitress apprenticeship at a tank station, but she would have preferred to have been a cosmetician.”