Josef Fritzl, the Austrian incest offender, is looking to sell his properties in order to raise money for his tormented family.

The retired engineer and property developer sexually abused and imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth, 42, in a purpose-built dungeon in the cellar of his home in the town of Amstetten for more than 24 years.

He forced her to bear seven of his children, one of which died shortly after birth and he burned his body in a heating oven.

Now Fritzl, 73, is seeking to sell his five houses in and around Amstetten in Lower Austria and secure the financial future of his daughter Elisabeth and her six surviving children, as well as his wife Rosemarie, 69, according to Austrian press reports.

The properties, all of which are apartment houses for rent, are mortgaged with 2.2 million euros, but Fritzl's representatives reportedly claim that they could be sold for an amount that would be sufficient to cover the debt and provide the family with a solid income.

Last month Fritzl hired a Viennese lawyer to handle his financial affairs and deal with his real estate.

It was reported that the sixth house he owns, the former Fritzl family home in the Ybbstrasse 40 in Amstetten where he kept his captive family hostages, now deemed the House of Horrors by the press, will be rented out.

[What a narcissistic asshole! He's selling all his properties, but he's keeping the house with the dungeon!]

According to Austrian law, Fritzl can conduct his businesses and dispose with his properties even if he is convicted to a lengthy prison sentence.

He is facing charges for manslaughter for the baby that died, as well as rape, incarceration, coercion and incest. Prosecutors are also looking into the possibility to charge Fritzl with slavery under an antiquated Penal Law paragraph that has never been used before.

The charges against him will be completed as soon as the expert report of a forensic psychiatrist will be delivered to the court, which is expected to be by the end of the month. The trial is then likely to take place in December or at the beginning of next year.

Accusato di coercizione, stupro, incesto e della morte di uno dei figli-nipoti, il 73enne ha già confessato tutto alle autorità competenti e, stando ai pubblici ministeri, potrebbe essere processato entro la fine di ottobre. Al momento non è stata ancora fissata una data ufficiale, ma sulla regolarità del processo il legale del mostro di Amstetten ha già espresso qualche dubbio. "E' un uomo distrutto, per lui sarà difficile avere un giusto processo davanti alla giuria anche a causa del grande clamore mediatico suscitato dalla vicenda", ha detto l'avvocato.
TGCOM 26 SETTEMBRE 2008

Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, imprisoned and repeatedly raped for 24 years has begun to describe her life as a sex slave, kept alive only to serve the depraved sexual desires of her own father, Josef Fritzl. She bore him 7 children (6 of whom survived) while she was his captive in a dungeon built under his house. She and 4 of her 7 children had no contact with the outside world; they had no friends; they never once were allowed outside; they never even saw the sun; in fact nobody but Josef Fritzl even knew that they were alive.

On the 28 August, 1984, Josef Fritzl locked his daughter Elisabeth in the cellar of the family home in Amstetten, Austria. Her indescribable pain, suffering, humiliation and degradation would last 8,516 days until her release on the 26th April, 2008. See the complete story of their captivity and rescue in a 5 part video documentary entitled The Josef Fritzl Story.

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=amstetten,+austria&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=32.66491,79.101563&ie=UTF8&layer=c&s=AARTsJrYy1Oaqa4chGUBnPmikSbjrNGefw&ll=48.69096,11.865234&spn=11.609354,37.353516&z=4&output=embed&w=425&h=200]

As prosecutors prepare the case against Josef Fritzl, which will hopefully go to trial before the end of the year, his enslaved daughter, Elisabeth Fritzl, has given her testimony to Austria's top female judge, Andrea Humer, excerpts of which were published in the Sun. In her interview with Ms Humer, Elisabeth said that her father threatened to leave them to rot in the cellar, which had no windows and was sealed by an electronically-locked door.

"He said he could close the door whenever he wanted and then we would soon see how we survived," she said.

The judge asked: "Did you take these threats as real?" Elisabeth replied: "Yes."

Elisabeth told the judge that she was raped up to three times a week by her father. She said that it was useless to resist because if she refused him, he would take it out on herself and the kids. He also threatened to leave her and the children to die in the cellar if they did not follow his commands.

"He was very brutal against me, and when I did not agree to have sex, then the kids would suffer. We knew he would kick us or be bad to us."

Elisabeth said she tried to give her children as normal a life as possible in their captivity, locked away in the dungeon. Whenever her father was not around, she would entertain them by singing to them and telling them stories. But when her father came to visit, the entire atmosphere dramatically changed.

"When he went away we led our own lives. When he was down here it was all silence. When he came down to the cellar we just tried to survive. He was just all-powerful."

She said her father regularly bullied them into subdued silence, punishing them if they dared to answer back.

"He wouldn't let the kids develop their own personalities. He didn't like them to talk back. At the beginning, when they were small, it wasn't such a problem. But as they got bigger and started developing a personality it was more of a problem. He did not like it and he tried to stop it. He would not allow the kids to have their own will."

It has been reported that the children are unwilling to testify against their father, but with the detailed description provided by Elisabeth of her experiences, their testimony may not add anything of value to the prosecutor's case.

Josef Fritzl himself gave an interview earlier to try and defend his actions. Fritzl maintains he acted out of love in imprisoning Elisabeth when she was 18 and keeping her in his cellar dungeon, where she was tortured and raped, giving birth to seven children.

"I grew up in the Nazi times, and that meant the need to be controlled and respect authority. Yet, despite that, I am not the monster that I am portrayed as in the media."

Josef Fritzl would be hard pressed to find anyone who agrees with him. Along with his own admission of having sex with his daughter and her testimony to judge Andrea Humer, prosecutors are hoping to bring as many as 3,000 counts of rape against the 73-year-old Josef Fritzl. In fact they are also looking into adding manslaughter charges for Fritzl's role in the death of one of his children, Michael, who died shortly after birth in 1997 and whose body Fritzl burned in an incinerator.

Il problema ora potrebbe essere quello di trovare una giuria. Secondo la legge austriaca, servono otto giurati e due delegati. "Siamo un paese piccolo. Non si trovano dieci persone che non abbiano già un'opinione forte su quest'uomo e su quello che ha fatto", ha riferito una fonte legale.

La figlia Elisabeth, che oggi ha 42 anni, è stata segretata e violata per oltre vent'anni e ha partorito sette figli, uno dei quali morto poco dopo la nascita. Con tre di questi - Kerstin, 19 anni, Stefan, 18, e Felix, sei anni - è rimasta nello "scantinato degli orrori" fino ad aprile scorso. Altri tre figli - Lisa, 16 anni, Monika, 14 e Ales, 12 - che Fritzl ha portato "in superficie" quando erano piccoli, hanno vissuto con lui e la moglie-nonna, Rosemarie, 69 anni.

La famiglia si trova ora in una clinica e i tre bambini cresciuti con i "nonni" dovrebbero tornare presto a scuola. "Non è certo ancora se la vecchia scuola sia il posto giusto", ha rivelato un amico.

Nineteen-year-old Kerstin's frustration and anguish led her to tear out her hair in clumps, rip her clothes to shreds, and stuff them down the dungeon's toilet, causing it to clog and spill sewage into their living space. She told police she deliberately blocked the toilet to get back at Josef.

A family friend was quoted as saying, “Kerstin has closed the door on many dark things that have happened to her and she may never be well enough to open it.”

Hospital sources say Kerstin is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The slightest everyday occurrence---"a door closing, a light going off, a room that she feels is too small"---sends her into a panic attack.

Doctors say her brother Stefan has motor response problems and may suffer from permanent spinal trouble. He's 5ft 9ins tall, but at its highest point the cellar was only 5ft 7ins, and in some places much lower. Stefan walks with a stoop and "still shuffles around" as if he were in the cellar, says the family friend.

Kerstin, Stefan, and Elisabeth have been prescribed medication to elevate their moods and help blot out the painful memories of their imprisonment.

Meanwhile, sources say, the three "upstairs" children are angry and resentful because their seemingly normal world has been turned upside down.

[sources: theage.com.au and dailystar.co.uk ]

A Zimbabwean man is being accused of fathering five children with his daughter in a long-running incestuous relationship that has left the local community stunned, The Zim Diaspora has established.

Chamunorwa Tazvigwira, of Tazvigwira Village in Masvingo under Chief Mapanzure, is now expecting his sixth child from the relationship.

Tazvigwira divorced his wife, Mrs Shamiso Tazvigwira, in the early 90s and allegedly commenced an incestuous relationship with his firstborn daughter, Tawonga Tazvigwira, now 30.

The incident comes a few months after a world exposee’ of an Austrian man Josef Fritzl who forced his daughter, Elisabeth, and three of the children he’d fathered (Kerstin, now 19; Stefan, now 18; and Felix, now 5) to live in the cellar for 24 years. He repeatedly raped his daughter who for 24 years almost accepted being her father’s wife.

More at http://www.zimdiaspora.com/articles/articlezimman20august08.html

London, Aug 22: The trial of Austrian incest fiend Josef Fritzl will be held behind closed doors, a court official has revealed.

The public and press will “quite certainly” be excluded to protect his victims in Sankt Poelten, Austria, he said.

More at http://www.topnews.in/dungeon-dad-s-trial-be-heard-secret-261009

It has been revealed that Kerstin Fritzl, 19, tore her hair out in clumps and ripped her dresses to shreds in the secret cellar she shared with her two brothers and mother Elisabeth.

In her frustration at spending all her life in a concrete basement of less than 60 square metres, she stuffed the dresses down the toilet, causing it to spill sewage into their living space.

Starved of vitamins, sunshine, fresh air, exercise and normal human stimulation, she plunged into a life-threatening illness in April that became her key to freedom.

Read more at: http://www.theage.com.au/world/fritzls-victims-face-life-in-care-20080820-3yvt.html

Ms Fritzl, who spent 24 years incarcerated and sexually abused by her father Josef, 74, in a purpose-built dungeon beneath his home, has said she will just change her surname.

She will live with her six children in a secret location an hour away from where she was kept a prisoner in Amstetten. The family will move out of the Amstetten-Mauer psychiatric clinic after their father's trial in December.

A source at the clinic was reported as saying Ms Fritzl "knows people will put two and two together".

More at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2577670/Elizabeth-Fritzl-rejects-offer-of-new-identity.html

While earlier this week, Elisabeth took all six kids to the police station to thank the officers for rescuing them.

Inspector Karl Gschoepf said: "It was such a shock when Elisabeth turned up. The children had painted a very touching picture and she brought a delicious cake. We also had coffee and ice cream and just sat around and chatted. Elisabeth said she was so happy to be with normal people again. There was lots of laughing and joking. It was quite remarkable."

According to CNN, in addition to the cake, Elisabeth and the kids also brought a gift basket containing several bottles of wine, and a poster, which read in part:

During the initial, most difficult period you gave us a lot of strength and security... We will always fondly remember you and hope that our contact won't stop."

What's also amazing is that 19-year-old Kerstin "showed no trace of the life-threatening illness that led to the discovery of Fritzl's dungeon in April."

I read today that the incredibly strong, amazing, and courageous, Elisabeth Fritzl is teaching her 'cellar children' how to play: something of which they had no concept, after spending their entire lives imprisoned underground.

She is showing them how to do all the things 'regular' kids take for granted: swimming, running, and rollerblading, to name a few. Apparently, she races around the clinic grounds with her kids, startling patients and staff as they whiz by on their inline skates.

Plus, one of the bodyguards has revealed that 18-year-old Stefan is so overwhelmed by the natural world, he wants to become a gardener! How cool is that?!

Passers-by at the family's villa say they can hear the sound of children laughing and screaming with delight as they play together. 'You can hear them splashing and just screaming their heads off at the thrill of being outside,' said one.

All I have to say is: Wow!

[source: The Daily Mail]

Police in Ulmerfeld-Hausmening said the victims brought presents during their visit last week -- a cake, a gift basket and a poster with a handwritten message. The officers protected the family from throngs of paparazzi and unwelcome guests during their first month and a half in a psychiatric clinic near Amstetten, west of Vienna.

Johann Wagner, one of the officers at the police station, said the gift basket included several bottles of wine. He was not present during the family's visit and could not provide more details.

"A really nice gesture, we were touched," Kurier quoted Gschoepf as saying.

According to the Thai Indian News, Elisabeth Fritzl has reportedly been sharing romantic walks with a dark-haired, "pony-tailed hunk" at her villa, located on the grounds of the Austrian clinic where she is undergoing counselling.

"They spend a lot of time talking together," a source has been quoted as saying.

"Her secret walks have fuelled rumours that Elisabeth may be taking her first steps on the road to romance."

The man is said to be of medium build, 5ft 10in tall, and in his mid- to late 30s.

According to one family source, the people who should have loved Elisabeth the most, either abused her or let her down. So, "if anyone deserves some happiness, it's her."

You go Elisabeth!

I read today that:

a) Josef Fritzl may face slavery charges for imprisoning and raping his daughter for 24 years, and that he may be going to trial as early as next month;

b) Rosemarie Fritzl's sister told a Swedish newspaper that Rosemarie "has totally lost it," and can't understand why no one is helping her, since she is also a "victim;"

and

c) Elisabeth Fritzl's lawyer says Elisabeth may be going to court to prevent the publication of books about her case and will sue if her privacy has been violated.

House of Horrors: The Horrific True Story of the Father from Hell, by Nigel Cawthorne, has already been published, and another book, Monster: A Rapist Father, a Captive Daughter, a Dungeon, by Allan Hall, is due for release in November.

[sources: Independent Television News Limited, Telegraph.co.uk, News24.com]

The 69-year-old, who claims she knew nothing of her husband's 24-year incarceration of her daughter in a cellar under their house, says she is another of Fritzl's victims. Elisabeth threw Rosemarie out of the villa because the three grandchildren she brought up still called her "mum".

They claim she is now struggling to survive on benefits of £300 a month and has lost a considerable amount of weight since the incest was uncovered in April.

Speaking to a Swedish newspaper through her sister Christine, she said she felt let down by the authorities. "My sister has totally lost it," she said. "She is also a victim and cannot understand that she does not get any help from anyone."

Friends of Rosemarie have said she will divorce Fritzl, 73, after his trial in the autumn.

It has emerged that the Austrian authorities are thinking of charging Fritzl with slavery in a bid to ensure he will face a longer sentence. There were fears that the historic nature of the rape allegations would mean he could only be sentenced for incarceration, which is punished with up to ten years in prison under Austrian law.

The authorities hope to have a series of formal charges ready by the end of September and a trial would begin in December, according to Gerhard Sedlacek, the prosecutor in the town of St Poelten, where Fritzl is being held.

Investigators said Fritzl confessed to keeping his daughter Elisabeth captive in an underground cellar at his home in Amstetten when she was 18, sexually abusing her and fathering seven children with her, including one whose body he allegedly tossed into a furnace.

DNA tests confirmed he is the surviving children's biological father. Three of the children were confined to the underground cellar, deprived of natural light and room to move freely, and three children were raised above ground by Fritzl and his wife, Rosemarie.

More at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/04/joseffritzl.austria

The Austrian man who held his daughter captive for 24 years could face slavery charges. Prosecutor Gerhard Sedlacek said authorities in St Poelten hoped to present formal charges against Josef Fritzl by the end of September. The retired engineer, who is awaiting trial, confessed to taking his daughter Elisabeth prisoner when she was 18, sexually abusing her and fathering her seven children, including one whose body he allegedly incinerated after it died. Fritzl could face murder charges if it is proved that the infant could have survived had it received proper medical attention.

From ITV.COM, no author:

Josef Fritzl, the man who imprisoned and raped his own daughter in Austria, may be charged with slavery.

Fritzl, 73, has admitted imprisoning his daughter Elisabeth Fritzl, 43, in a windowless cellar for 24 years and raping her repeatedly. She gave birth to seven of his children, now aged between five and 19 years, three of whom were locked up with their mother.  The charges are reportedly being prepared at the moment, and could be ready to bring Fritzl to trial as early as next month.

A spokesman for prosecutors said no-one has yet been prosecuted in the country for the offence of slavery.  In the meantime he is being held in Vienna and the children he imprisoned are currently undergoing psychiatric treatment.

Elisabeth and three of their children were held in specially adapted rooms in the basement of Fritzl's house in the town of Amstetten.  His wife claims she had no idea what had happened to her daughter.

From Leadership Nigeria:

 By: Unknown Author

There are some things so heinous that they stretch to breaking point my conviction that "nothing which is human is alien to me". One such thing is the alleged imprisonment and rape of Elisabeth FritzI by her father Josef in a cellar in Amstetten, Austria, for the past 24 years. Josef allegedly forced his daughter into a depraved, incestuous relationship which produced seven children, three of whom were imprisoned with Elisabeth in the sunlight free bunker that Josef built especially for them. Many of us cannot understand how a human being could do such unspeakable things.

Yet in much of the response to the FritzI scandal, observers have suggested that, far from being" alien", Josef's alleged crimes are all too "human". Rather than being viewed as an aberration, a story which has dominated headlines around the world precisely because it is so extraordinary, the cellarincest horror is being turned by some into a metaphor - a metaphor for the continued haunting of Europe by the ghosts of Nazism; for Austria's strange and unknowable "Eastern" streak; and for the dangerous unpredictability of family life in general, especially as lived "behind closed doors".

It takes a deeply disturbed individual to imprison his daughter. It takes a deeply disturbed society to behold such grotesque crimes and think to itself: where else might this sort of thing be happening?

Most commonly, the FritzI outrage is being held up as an indictment of the Austrian people. They have been judged harshly by Western observers for their alleged buttoned-up, look-the-other-way attitude, which apparently allowed Fritzl to get away with raping his daughter and abusing his children/ grandchildren for a quarter of a century.

"How could Austria let this happen?" asked one newspaper report, as if all eight million Austrians were somehow responsible for the actions of one individual. The main problem, it seems, is that Austria is a "look-away society" - that is, instead of peering into one another's lives, Austrians "keep themselves to themselves". Such a "culture of secrecy" was apparently complicit in allowing Fritzl to carry out his family atrocity. "It is the interlocking circles of secrecy that make Austria special in the way it deals with, or ignores, individual tragedies", argued one British journalist based in Vienna.

This view of Austria was summed up by a horror film-style headline that declared: "In Austria, no one can hear you scream." The implication is that if Austrians were a bit more like proper Western Europeans - a bit more suspicious, questioning, and interrogative - then Elisabeth and her children may have been saved earlier. In an echo of the "collective guilt" debates that followed the experience of Nazism in the Second World War, the whole of Austria is being charged with turning a blind eye to the dungeon of horror in the small town of Amstetten. Only in a "cosy, incurious community concerned with Schein nicht Sein", or "appearance, not reality'" could a "crime so macabre, which is already being described as the crime of the century" take place, says one report.

Numerous reports have claimed that there is a "trend" in Austria for people to be kidnapped and locked up. A headline in the UK Daily Mail says: "Austria - secrecy, shame and the land of lost children." Forget lederhosen or The Sound of Music - those, apparently, are the three things Austria is best known for now. Reporters point out that, "unbelievably, this proud old country of just eight million people is now the scene of yet another chilling and unspeakably sordid case of kidnapping and sexual enslavement - the third in the past 20 months".

First there was Natascha Kampusch, who was kidnapped as a child and held captive in an underground lair in a Viennese suburb, before escaping in August 2006. Then in February 2007 it was discovered that in Linz a deranged

mother had locked her three children in a rat-infested hideaway for seven years. Now FritzI. "Why are child abuse scandals happening in Austria?" ask newspaper reports. One British journalist has an answer: it is because "the concept of good neighbourliness is utterly alien to many older Austrians", who are "so wary of over familiarity" that they "usually have no clue what is going on next door, and have no wish to find out".

According to The Times (London): "In the mind's eye of non-Austrians, the land of powder skiing, avid recycling and Gluhwein has morphed into the kind of place ... in which sordid things happen to children."

In the real world, away from our rather warped-sounding "mind's eye", the three recent child abuse scandals in Austria have very little in common. Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped by a loner who at first imprisoned her and later treated her as something akin to a daughter (though he regularly beat and threatened her). The middle-class mum in Linz suffered a nervous breakdown and withdrew her children from the world - there have been very similar cases in America and Western Europe. Also, there have been shocking instances of children held in captivity elsewhere in the world: last year 15-year-old Shawn Hornbeck was found in Missouri in the US after being held captive for four years; Belgian paedophile Marc Dutroux held two girls captive for 80 days.

There have been a smattering of thankfully rare abductions and imprisonments across the globe - and they have revealed nothing about "national traits" or any widespread human depravity. Yet that has not stopped Western reporters rushing to psychoanalyse "warped" Austria. Apparently, the reason why Austria has become "the child abuse capital of the world" is because it is traumatised by history. Its Nazi past is coming back to haunt it, in the shape of both eerie child kidnappings and the failure of the mass of the population to do anything about them.

Under the headline "A country in crisis", the UK Daily Express reports one theory for the FritzI scandal: "Maybe in Austria there is an undercurrent of playing at Nazis and putting concentration camps in your basement." The Australian newspaper claims that "there is a consensus mentality" in Austria, "an aversion ... to open conflict, which has reached almost neurotic proportions". Apparently Austria "locks out whistle blowers and malcontents as surely as Josef FritzI locked up his daughter and children/grandchildren" - and the "tone" for this national neurosis was set in the 1930s "when Nazi Germany incorporated Austria into the Third Reich".

The Australian says: "It would be wrong, of course, to see a Nazi lurking behind every floral-patterned sofa in provincial Austria. But an amateur psychologist might draw the conclusion that 73-year-old FritzI, whose early childhood was spent in Nazi Austria, came to accept certain patterns of behaviour." The operative word here is "amateur". Everywhere, observers are using bizarre, amateurish cod-psychology to find out why Austria is so damaged and pathetic. This is not only a mad view to take on the basis of one shocking case of abduction and imprisonment: it is also a deeply fatalistic diagnosis, which views an entire country and its people as having been defined by their history, as if they were automatons somehow brainwashed by the Nazis of 70 years ago to be insular, uncaring and cowardly.

Blaming Nazism for Fritzl's alleged crimes is as mad as saying that Britain's Fred West was made into a serial killer by the sex comedies of the 1970s - after all, didn't they feature weird men in flares who took home young women and frolicked with them? Clearly those movies warped a generation.

There is something deeply contradictory in the post-Nazi reading of modern Austria. Some claim that FritzI and other Austrians (who, precisely?) may be aping the Nazis' tactics by imprisoning people in mini-concentration camps. Yet others say it is because Austrians have turned their backs on their Nazi past that they have become the victims of child abuse scandals: "Perhaps Austrians, in rejecting the practice of denunciation that flourished under the Nazis, have become too ready to look the other way?" What are these journalists saying, exactly? That Austrians should remembrace the fascist culture of spying and snitching in order to sniff out any remaining Fritzls in their obviously fed-up country? Such implied conclusions show up both the amateurish and morally reprehensible nature of the post-FritzI rush to pass judgment on an entire nation.

Reading some of the coverage of the FritzI case, it seems clear that Austria has replaced Germany as the recipient of Western - and most obviously British - fear of the threat from the strange Eastern automaton. All of the things now being said about Austria - that it has a "consensus mentality", that its people are unfeeling and unquestioning, that their personalities have been moulded by Nazism - were once said about the Germans. Yet as Germany has emerged over the past 15 years as a major player in a newly united Europe, these prejudices have been projected further Eastwards, on to the unpredictable nations of Austria and Poland in particular, which apparently are struggling to "come to terms" with their Nazi-annexed or Nazi-occupied pasts. Many have pointed out Austria's dual identity as a Western wannabe that is closely connected to Eastern Europe. Austria is "a stepping-stone on the road to Eastern Europe",

said one report about FritzI; another pointed out that Amstetten is in eastern Austria, which is "cold and cheerless". In the denunciations of Austrians for failing to find the Fritzls and drag them from their cellar, we can see how Austria has become a proxy Germany - a place where it is claimed that backward Nazi attitudes still survive - and also a symbol of everything that is dark, dangerous and odd about the East of Europe.

The greater and more worrying implication behind the reaction to the FritzI scandal is that there is something inherently dangerous about family life itself - both in the East and the West. Alongside pointing out the peculiarity of the Austrian character, some reporters have asked: could it happen here? "Is a FritzI horror happening in Britain?" demands the Daily Telegraph. After all, FritzI's alleged crimes "took place on an ordinary suburban street in an unremarkable European city".

One British analyst says that one reason why FritzI's alleged crimes may have gone undetected is because "people do not assume the worst in others." "in some ways we are incurious about what goes on behind closed doors because it serves as a kind of self-protection. It does us no good to reflect, for example, that in a busload of 60 or 70 passengers, statistically there may be at least half-a-dozen dangerously disturbed individuals." Next time you catch the bus to work, look out for the Josef Fritzls.

The phrase "behind closed doors" has cropped up again and again in the coverage of the FritzI case. "We know not what goes on behind closed doors ... " says one commentator. "Oh, what horrors exist behind closed doors", says another). "Closed doors" have become a powerful symbol of the alleged threat and danger of family life. As Frank Furedi argued in Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age: "The phrase 'behind closed doors' articulates the mistrust in fundamental private encounters. Suspicion regarding what is likely to happen behind the closed door has become an important motif in contemporary culture." Now, the FritzI horrors are held up as evidence that "closed doors" are a problem - that private family life is dangerous, and that people's failure to peer through their neighbours' windows can allow criminality and insanity to go unchecked. Yet as one Austrian journalist sensibly asked: "Should we all invite social workers to look in our basements?"

In truth, there are not Josef Fritzls lurking everywhere. If Austrians do not" assume the worst in others", that is a good thing. And if they feel alienated or dislocated from their neighbours and fellow citizens, then they are by no means alone: that is a common experience in the Western world today. One thing is certain, though: encouraging greater suspicion of our friends, neighbours and fellow bus travellers on the basis that anyone of them might be a FritzI will do nothing to heighten community solidarity - but it will do a lot to spread fear and doubt and, most likely, to encourage a hands-off attitude to other, potentially dangerous people. It will make us feel further ensconced in our own homes, and at odds with other individuals ensconced in theirs.

As the freed FritzI children discover the joys of sunlight and take their first steps on the road to recovery, it would be a shame if they grew up in an Austria and a Europe made even more uptight by the one-off horror that they endured.

 

 

Rosemarie Fritzl, 69, made the announcement after she had been asked to leave the flat of her daughter Elisabeth and her six grandchildren that was provided by the state.

It is believed that the move came at Elisabeth's request, according to the Austrian newspaper Oesterreich.

Fritzl, 73, a retired engineer, confessed to incarcerating and sexually abusing his daughter Elisabeth, 42, in a purpose-built dungeon in his cellar for over 24 years, forcing her to bear seven of his children.

He selected three of the children to live upstairs with him and his wife, while the other three were left to dwell with their mother in the dank windowless cellar. One of the children died and Fritzl burned his body in an incinerator.

Mrs Fritzl was seen picking up her private belongings from the home she lived in for over half a century with her husband that was deemed the House of Horrors by the press.

She has taken several pieces of furniture and has since been spending the nights at different places and living with relatives and friends.

Christoph Herbst, the lawyer for the Fritzl family, said: "No-one from that family will ever want to live in that house again."

Not having worked since her early youth, Mrs Fritzl is only entitled to meagre benefits payments amounting to just over 200 pounds.

Local press speculated on Elisabeth's motives for forcing her mother to leave the home which was awarded to them by the authorities in a scheme resembling that of a witness protection program in order to avoid the attention of the media.

It was reported that Elisabeth, who claims to have been raped by her father already at the age of 11, objected to the three children calling Rosemarie "mum" and also could not accept the fact that her mother never did anything to help her.

According to daily Oesterreich, Rosemarie now made a bid to distance herself from her husband, and announced she would divorce him and take back her maiden name.

AUSTRIAN incest father Josef Fritzl may have raped the sister of his long-suffering wife Rosemarie, it emerged yesterday.

Police examining papers and diaries found at the home where he built a secret cellar to incarcerate and abuse his daughter Elizabeth — who bore him seven children — indicate that he attacked his sister-in-law.

Media reports say the diary entry is being examined by police.

News of the find came on the same day that it was learned Rosemarie is seeking to divorce her husband after 52 years of marriage.

Austrian media say Rosemarie, 69, will divorce Josef, 74, after he stands trial in the northern autumn for the ordeal to which he subjected their daughter. Fritzl, 74, locked up Elisabeth in a secret cellar beneath his home in Amstetten, near Linz, 24 years ago and subjected her to brutal rapes throughout her incarceration.

She bore him seven children in his dungeon. She was freed in April this year when her first-born daughter Kerstin, 19, hovered near death after falling ill in the cellar.

Rosemarie and Josef Fritzl brought up three of the cellar children in their home. He concocted an elaborate story that his daughter had run away to join a sect and claimed the children were left on his doorstep because Elisabeth, now 42, could not cope with bringing them up.

Rosemarie joined Elisabeth and her children in a psychiatric clinic after her husband was arrested, but a rift has since opened up with her daughter.

Elisabeth is angry that the three children Rosemarie brought up call her mother instead of grandmother.

She is also having trouble accepting that her mother did not know that she was being abused when she was an 11-year-old schoolgirl or that she did not try to do more to find her when Fritzl said she had run away as a teenager.

Consequently, Rosemarie has moved out of the clinic and is living alone in a rented flat in Linz. She cannot bring herself to live in the house again.

Various news sources are reporting that a diary found in Josef Fritzl's cellar says that one of his rape victims was his wife's sister!

The journal also states that Fritzl's spineless wife, Rosemarie, knew about his sexual attacks on other women [yet stayed married to him and allowed the sociopath full access to Elisabeth].

Following Fritzl's arrest in April, police searched the cellar and found hundreds of files detailing his activities.

Apparently, Rosemarie will be divorcing her husband and reverting to her maiden name.

Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, has had a terrible life. Raped by her father, Josef Fritzl, 73, since age 11 and incarcerated by him for 24 years. She bore her father 7 children, six of whom are still alive, while being held captive in a dungeon cellar. For a detailed look at the abuse Elisabeth suffered at the hands of her father click here for The Josef Fritzl story.

It now appears that a rift has opened up between her mother, Rosemarie Fritzl, 69, and herself. According to reports, Elisabeth has asked her mother to leave their home. She, Elisabeth, appears to have mixed feelings about her mother:

She is said to find it hard to understand why her mother stayed with her father even though he was a convicted rapist who spent time in jail in the 1960’s.

She also has a hard time understanding why her mother did not stand up to her father, who began raping her when she was only 11 years old. She finds it hard to believe that her mother knew nothing at all about the abuse. Also, when Josef told his wife that Elisabeth had run away from home, she wonders why her mother did not do more to try and find her, especially when Josef produced three of her children who were supposedly left on her doorstep.

Elisabeth is also upset that the three children who grew up with her mother are still calling Rosemarie "Mom" and not "Grandmother". The children: Lisa, 16, Monika, 14, and Alexander, 12, were all raised by Josef and Rosemarie in their home, while the other children: Kerstin, 19, Stefan, 18, and Felix, 5, were forced to live in the cellar with Elisabeth.

In the meantime, Rosemarie Fritzl was seen collecting some personal items from her old house. Christoph Herbst, the lawyer for the Fritzl family, said: "No-one from that family will ever want to live in that house again." It is believed that she has moved in with one of her relatives, possibly one of her own sons. Rosemarie is said to be "shattered" that she had to leave her family. Doctors fear she could be the most severely disturbed member of the family. Christoph Herbst, the family's lawyer, said after Elisabeth was freed in April:

"Rosemarie has lost the centre of her world. Her life was never that good but she always had the children and she had to be strong and be there for them no matter how bad things were at home.

"Now she is no longer the key figure in the children's lives because their mother has returned and she also has to deal with the awful revelations of what had happened to her daughter Elisabeth over all these years."

After being asked to leave her family, Rosemarie announced that she would be divorcing her husband Josef. She had married him at age 17 and had spent the next 52 years of her life as his wife. She is reportedly doing all she can to distance herself from her husband. She will take back her maiden name after the divorce. Not having worked since her early youth, Mrs Fritzl is only entitled to meager benefits payments.

In other developments Elisabeth Fritzl has finished giving testimony against her father. She spent 4 days talking to prosecutors. While details of her testimony have not been made public, it is believed that she accused her father of rape and psychological torment, as well as for the death of her child, who is thought to have died three days after birth because of conditions in the cellar.

However there seems to be some reluctance on the part of the adult children to give testimony against their father. Prosecutors want to use the testimonies of Kerstin,19, and Stefan,18, to reinforce the charges against their father.The prosecution spokesman, Gerhard Sedlacek, said:

“We still have not fixed a date for the questioning of the two adult children but it has now emerged that they could make use of their right not to speak to the authorities and refuse to give evidence against their father.

“The matter will be discussed between their lawyer and the judge in charge, but it has been suggested that they decline to give any statement.”

Josef Fritzl, a retired engineer, has made a partial confession and is facing charges of manslaughter for the death in 1996 of Michael, who was the twin brother of 12-year-old Alexander, as well as rape, coercion, deprivation of freedom and incest. However, prosecutors said that the first two charges would be very difficult to prove because of the lack of scientific evidence and because they were relying to a large extent on the testimonies of the children to strengthen their case.

“There is no direct forensic evidence due to the time elapsed and there is no body, since he allegedly burnt the baby in an oven. The charges could therefore only be based on the testimony of his daughter. In addition, in order to stand up the charges of manslaughter, one would need to attain evidence that there was premeditation, as well as evidence that the child would have survived had it received medical attention.”

The allegations of rape, which carry a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, would also be difficult to prove because of lack of corroborating evidence, and the charges would only be based on the testimony of Elisabeth.

If his adult children refuse to give evidence, Mr Fritzl could be facing a ten-year prison term as Austrian law does not allow for multiple convictions. This means that even if he is found guilty of several crimes, he will only serve one punishment, for the offense that carries the longest prison sentence, which in this case is likely to be deprivation of freedom.

A jury of eight will decide whether Mr Fritzl is guilty. If he is convicted they will confer with a panel of three judges to determine his sentence. The trial is set to start sometime in the fall.

Apparently Elisabeth Fritzl, who was locked in her dad's basement for 24 years, recently asked her mother, Rosemarie, to leave the apartment they were staying in with her six children. Elisabeth's reason is not just that her children are confused as to who their mother is, but she's also wondering if Rosemarie knew about the abuse and didn't step in to help.

With all the stress and chaos they have endured, I'm a little surprised that something hasn't blown up sooner. I can't imagine what all those kids are going through, trying to figure out how life is supposed to be. It's going to take years, if not decades, for all of those involved to work through all the atrocities they have seen and experienced.

Oh, and Rosemarie is reportedly divorcing her husband. You think?

I hate to say, "I told you so."

But it seems Elisabeth Fritzl agrees with me!

Her mother, Rosemarie Fritzl, is no innocent victim.

According to the Scotsman, Elisabeth has kicked Rosemarie out of the villa they have been sharing at the psychiatric clinic.

Elisabeth is angry that her three children (Monika, Lisa, and Alex), who were raised upstairs by Josef and Rosemarie, call Rosemarie "Mother" instead of "Grandmother."

She is also pissed at Rosemarie for doing NOTHING to protect her from her rapist father, while she was growing up. Josef began sexually assaulting Elisabeth seven years before locking her in the dungeon, but Rosemarie turned a blind eye to her daughter's suffering.

Rosemarie, who apparently has no money, is said to be "shattered" by Elisabeth's actions.

Well, that's just too fucking bad, isn't it?

As I've said before, the woman had to be pretty twisted herself, to remain married to a sick, depraved, convicted rapist for 52 years, and continue to have children with such a monster.

Doctors say Rosemarie Fritzl is "the most severely disturbed of all the family members."

I've been saying this all along.

Vienna, 25 lug. (Adnkronos) - Elisabeth Fritzl, la 42enne austriaca violentata da quando aveva 11 anni dal padre Josef che l'ha messa incinta sette volte, ha deciso di cacciare di casa sua madre Rosemarie. A riferirlo e' il quotidiano britannico 'Telegraph', spiegando che la donna non sopportava che tre dei suoi figli continuassero a chiamare 'mamma' quella che in realta' e' la loro nonna. Rinchiusa a 18 anni nel sotterraneo della casa di Amstetten dal padre 'mostro', Elisabeth si era vista sottrarre 3 figli dell'incesto: Josef aveva affidato i ragazzi piu' grandi, Lisa oggi 16enne, Monica di 14 anni e Alexander di 11, alle cure di sua moglie Rosemarie. Secondo la stampa austriaca, Elisabeth non crede che sua madre non si era accorta che il padre la violentava in casa quando era piccola, prima di tenerla sequestrata per 24 anni nel sotterraneo. Il legale di Elisabeth, Cristoph Herbst, ha confermato che sua madre ha lasciato la casa delle vittime del 'mostro, nel parco della clinica psichiatrica, e che e' andata a vivere da uno dei suoi altri figli.
(Ses/Ct/Adnkronos)