10 Years of Freedom

by Natascha Kampusch

  I am not willing to open up every corner of my inner being to public scrutiny. And I don’t understand why people keep demanding that I do exactly that. It would neither help clear up the case, which has already been solved, even though some people are still unwilling to accept that. And it would not add anything to the kidnapper’s punishment, which he managed to avoid by killing himself. Even if some people refused to accept his suicide and even suspect murder. It would also not allow me to better process all of those terrible years, for people to treat me differently. It would only serve to satisfy a strange desire that I would not even call hunger for sensationalism.

  In the Fritzl case, which would later often be mentioned in the same breath as mine, much of this was not an issue because everything was already on the table. There was a criminal who soaked up a lot of the attention. There was a daughter who had been abused, for years. An incestuous, coercive relationship that produced children who had to be protected. The issue was not an issue. It was plain that nobody need know the details.

  As I said, there are many forms of abuse. There is mental cruelty, but nothing seems to weigh as heavily and to fan the flames of people‘s imaginations as much as sexual abuse. In the British yellow press I was christened “the sex slave” for years, and in German-language tabloids the kidnapper was dubbed “the sex beast”. That sick man was indeed in many ways a beast, but that is apparently not enough. Of course I was also subjected to sexual assault, but the fact that I have spoken and written about it is apparently not enough. And “they” are certainly not able to deal with the fact that I have always stressed that I wanted to preserve at least a shred of privacy. Many people seem to think that it is my duty in particular to inform the public about every tiny detail of my story, every episode, every emotion. The constant demands to reveal even more, as if they wanted to deprive me of my rights to individuality and privacy a second time. That is exactly what the kidnapper did for eight and half years.

  Why is my desire for at least this small shred of privacy so difficult to understand and accept? Most people, particularly if they’ve gained a certain level of notoriety, do not like it at all when they are asked in an interview or an article about their school grades or when their salary is published. But I’m supposed to shine light into the darkest corners of my story and I’m scolded when I refuse to do so. They point out in a supposedly well-meaning way that refusing to do so leaves room for speculation. And if I wished to prevent speculation, I would simply have to spit out the whole truth. Who really wants to know the scope of my truth so precisely?

  Additionally, I have learned the very bitter lesson that these speculations will never stop. Because the crime in and of itself goes beyond the human imagination, which is why people apparently feel the need to continue to garnish and embellish it while indulging in the most far-fetched theories. Because the relationship between the victim and the kidnapper is so complex, because there is no clear black or white. Because society needs such supposed monsters like Wolfgang Priklopil in order to put a face on the evil that resides within it, thereby separating out the evil from its midst. It needs images of cellar dungeons so as not to have to see the well-tended façades and front yards where violence hides behind a fully normal, middle-class appearance. Wolfgang Priklopil was a man who was described by his neighbours as friendly, helpful and perhaps a bit shy. After the fact they pretended that they had always felt something was a bit off. He was a bit strange yes, but something like that? No, unthinkable. Still, he was a human being, not a beast. That would be too easy. We are all shaped by our environment. Nobody is born into this world completely evil. We all have our personal histories, but people don’t want to see that. Otherwise they would have to do too much soul-searching of their own. There are thousands of victims of supposed every day crimes, thousands of abused people, most of them women and children, but others as well. And all of this takes place in the very everyday prison of their own homes or in children’s own bedrooms.

  There are probably thousands of diary entries like this that, however, are never made public:

  Punches and kicks, choking, scratching, bruising my wrist, squeezing of the same, shoving against the door frame. Beating me in and around my stomach with a hammer and fists. Bruises on: my right hip bone, right upper and lower arm, my left and right thigh and my shoulders. Abrasions and scratches on my thighs, my left calf.

  Pummelling me several times, black bruises below my shoulder blades and along my spine. He hit me on my right ear, still feel only stabbing pain and hear only crackling noises. Then he continued to hit me on the head.

  Crimes like the one perpetrated against me help to cement the framework of good and evil that supports our society. Their abnormality helps us to direct our gaze from normal, everyday madness to the extremes. They help us to differentiate where so many shades of grey are. The kidnapper must be perverse and inhuman, so that we can remain human ourselves. As a result, the crime becomes something so far apart from us that it is completely divorced from our own lives.

  From the very beginning I have spoken openly about this aspect, about the need for differentiation. But as soon as I tried to sketch out a more nuanced image, even of the kidnapper, the lines between good and evil start to blur for many people. That must not be allowed. The world is complex enough, and we want to have clarity on this one point. Evil personified must not be allowed to have any kind of human side whatsoever. Otherwise evil can no longer be externalized.

  In my case the question of how people in our midst can escape any kind of controls is hardly addressed. Today it is brought up perhaps more often where we are looking at other cases, such as Amstetten, or now very recently in Höxter, a town in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Here as well the criminals seemed quite normal to the outside world, as inconspicuous as the façades of their homes.

  It is apparent that something is wrong in our society. But before we take a closer look, we prefer to salaciously give ourselves over to speculating about what could have happened behind closed doors. It seems to always be more interesting to train our gaze outward as opposed to inward. What goes on on the “inside” of those involved is largely deemed unimportant. In some ways this applies to the criminal, but often enough also to the victim.

  People often only express their affection for the victim if they can feel superior or sympathize. During my captivity I often wondered what it would be like. If I showed everybody how terrible things were for me, how much I suffered, would they ever be able to see me as a “normal person” again? Would I be condemned to victim status for eternity?

  After my escape and my first interview I received a flood of letters from people who expressed their genuine and honest compassion. They were not experiencing any internal conflict and had no expectations of me, whatever those might be. But I also received a large number of other letters. From people who accused me of not knowing what suffering looks like, because if I had truly experienced suffering, I would have to be broken. One anonymous letter writer even scolded me writing, “You who have debased yourself so, what are you doing up here with us? You need to stay down there in your dirty swamp, down there far away, because that’s where you belong!”

  But really, what does a broken person look like? Who would dare take it upon themselves to sit in judgment on that? If I had been broken by my isolation, I would not have survived my captivity. And only because I don’t go around talking about how badly I am doing sometimes, how dark some days are, doesn’t mean that I don’t have such days. For me, every new day is a balancing act. Testing the waters of what I can manage today and what I can’t. Whether I feel confident enough to go out in public or whether I would rather hide out in my flat. A couple of years ago I went through a phase where I began to reject the world outside. That world that I had looked forward to so much and had associated with so many positive thoughts and possibilities. For part of that world I was somewhat of a provocation. Perhaps because I perple
xed it with the way I dealt with my abduction and my captivity. Maybe I trigger so much aggression because the kidnapping triggers aggression. And because I’m the only person who is here within reach, I am the only one on the receiving end of that aggression. Not the kidnapper, who actually deserves it. I had to learn that much of the rejection that was directed at me had nothing to do with me, but rather that many people experience forms of violence that they were unable to escape from. Because they have not yet processed their experiences or are stuck every day in their own prison and cannot break free, although in fact the door is standing wide open. Just like in my case, their mental prison is stronger. The fact that after several years I have managed to overcome both doors perhaps makes their own powerlessness painfully obvious.

  That has nothing to do with me, but in some cases I have to come to terms with the open hate and rejection. I was able to muster up my defences to counter the terror and the dark fantasies of the kidnapper to prevent myself from being broken. Now the world wanted to see exactly that. A broken person, still constantly dependent on help from others. I spent so many years being dependent on a person who would come, open the heavy door in order to toss a couple of carrots into my dungeon; on a person who would allow me out of the dungeon for a couple of hours in accordance with his rules and thanks to his mercy. Because of this I longed for almost nothing more than no longer having to be needy and dependent.

  *

  Both the kidnapper and I underwent all of these interconnections and stages of development, and that was my intention in writing my book 3,096 Days. I was surprised at the positive feedback and at the fact that people liked the book – inasmuch as it is possible to like reading about such subject matter. The people who read my book told me that they had all of a sudden felt that they were close to me, that they understood me. For me, it was like I had given people a piece of myself, providing courage and hope without having to expose myself in an unpleasant way. One lady said to me, “Before I didn’t know what to think of you. But now that I’ve read the book, you have my utmost respect.” There is no greater praise than that. The book not only gave me back the power to define my narrative, but also lent me a kind of seriousness, allowing people to better understand how I was able to present myself so clearly and thoughtfully after my escape.

  *

  Precisely these aspects – shedding light on various stages of development – was supposed to be the focus of the movie as I saw it. And that was precisely my attitude when I met with Bernd Eichinger for the first time.

  In the early part of the summer in 2010 there were several meetings in Vienna at the Hotel Imperial Café that I did not attend. Our first meeting was to take place in an open-gallery office on the Ringstrasse boulevard that provides a wonderful view of the Stadtpark. Eichinger had been described to me as “difficult”, a bit macho, someone who knew what he wanted and was able to get it. It turned out later that he had heard similar reports about me. It seems that we had both rolled up our sleeves and were not prepared to move a single inch from our own ideas. And that is exactly how our first meeting went. We were both staking out our territory, jockeying over who would have the upper hand. It was my story, but he was the famous director who wanted to film it.

  After a couple minutes of unimportant small talk about the weather and the beautiful view, we got right to the point. The manuscript of my book, which was not yet quite finished, was “not bad at all”, a good basis for a film script, but … I wanted to know what was lacking in his opinion. Well, everything really that I had not talked about openly to date, but most certainly had to be there.

  I felt like I was in a scene from a terrible movie and reacted accordingly. Dismissive, defensive, a bit hostile. Why did he have to start off with what he called gaps? Why not tackle what we already had?

  After two hours, the project appeared to be dead. Angrily he stomped down the stairs, stating that if I didn’t want to talk, there was no basis for the project, and that he couldn’t work that way. For several minutes I sat in the office alone. Did that now mean victory or defeat? Had I driven off an opponent or a partner who took an honest interest in working up my story?

  Later on I found out that Eichinger was indeed irritated and a bit perplexed, and that he had drowned his frustration in a number of drinks at the Hotel Imperial, but also that he had never seriously decided to throw in the towel at any time. He was not going to give up that easily. It was really only logical that I reacted so negatively. It was not without reason that I was mistrustful, even fearful of being dictated again by someone else, of losing control. I was not able to simply trust in the fact that everything would turn out just fine. The fact that everything would not automatically “be just fine” was something that I had learned quite painfully from my more recent past.

  There was radio silence for several weeks. Eichinger had gone back to the US, where he apparently continued to think about implementing the project despite my hostile attitude. That fall, after the work on my book was completed, I received an invitation to his Austrian home at Lake Wolfgang. It was pouring down rain, and my companion and I kept missing the right turn-off. We were very clearly late to our appointment. On the mobile: “No, now you’ve gone much too far!” – “Where are you now? Can you see the campground? Now drive toward …” - We were guided to his house. Fortunately our lateness was not an issue. After a brief tour we were treated to a delicious cherry strudel, and that evening we sat by the fireplace and talked.

  It was a cautious attempt at finding common ground. Step-by-step each of us was prepared to abandon the role that we both had played up to that point. The next day was when the real work began. His first question focused on the beginning of that fateful day: He wanted to know exactly what details had triggered my morning argument with my mother. I told him about the evening before, when my father had brought me home much later than agreed and had failed to accompany me to the apartment door, not looking to get into it with my mother. “Jesus Christ! You are hours late. How can he allow you to cross the courtyard alone in the middle of the night? God knows what could’ve happened to you. I’ll tell you one thing: You will not see your father again. I’m so tired of this, and I will not stand for it any longer!”

  I told him about the next morning and about other situations where I was forced to take sides, to favour one over the other. Again and again he interrupted me saying, “I need to be able to imagine this exactly.” The part where my mother came into my room once again on the evening before the kidnapping in order to lay out my clothes for the next day and to caress my head briefly seem to be a key moment for him, an attempt at reconciliation. I turned away and pulled the blanket over my head. The next morning, after she slapped my cheek, I said goodbye to the cats, but not to my mother. I was not going to give her a kiss; I was going to punish her by giving her the silent treatment.

  Eichinger was so immersed in what had happened that I had the feeling that he wanted to slowly peel away the layers of the people behind this “case”. He was examining interaction on a number of levels and not focusing on a foregrounded spectacle. He worked his way forwards in the story, largely chronologically, up until my first few weeks in the dungeon.

  Sometime after I returned to Vienna, I received an invitation to another round of discussions at his house by the lake. We had to interrupt our talks on a number of occasions, because I was unable to go on, or he needed to “catch a breath of fresh air” in order to sort through what he had heard. On our last evening he laid out for me in great detail how he envisaged the film. He wanted to expose the core underpinning of the human actions and pour it into a mould that he could use to explain the incomprehensible. It was to be a radical film in which he wanted to “completely rethink” its dimensions. A kind of lifting of boundaries of both mind and space, as conveyed in images – although conceivably there was hardly any other more limited space than my dungeon and the interplay between kidnapper and victim. Filmed in 3-D
in order to allow the viewers to experience the immediacy of the closeness, the distance, the reality and fantasy worlds.

  That sounded a little bit abstract, but he explained very sensitively and patiently to me that he saw my kidnapping as more than just a classic criminal case. He was fascinated primarily by the development that I had undergone all those years. From being absolutely inferior, slowly attaining equal footing, and then gaining the strength of a survivor. He wanted to turn the domestic setting into a battlefield, on which the drama between the kidnapper and the victim, as well as the drama between the kidnapper and his mother played out. The dictates of orderliness and cleanliness were to become a tool of oppression, to expose the cruelty that we would not expect to be hidden behind properly trimmed hedgerows, but in actuality took place precisely there.15

  *

  After our first, rather intimidating encounter, I felt that Eichinger was a strong person, full of life, with a sensitive and warm-hearted side. At Christmas he sent me a package from the US with a CD collection of the Beatles, because I had casually mentioned once that I like their music so much. I cut our last phone call short because I – ironically enough – was on my way to the movies. When I received the call at the end of January 2011 that he had collapsed at a restaurant in Los Angeles and had died, I found it impossible to believe at first.

  For a long time nobody knew whether the project was to be continued, and if so, then how. I was familiar with portions of the script that he had completed up until that time; everything that he had explained to me had been written down, line for line. The story of an illusion, wary, subtle and for exactly that reason conveying an enormous power.