On March 2, 1998, the then ten-year-old Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped on her way to school. She is in the hands of her kidnapper for 3096 days until she manages to escape. 25 years later she is still struggling to ensure that this time does not determine her whole life.
The thoughts of the kidnapping keep coming up, but her fate no longer seems to burden Natascha Kampusch. “The act determined the direction of my life, but it was not life-determining,” says the 35-year-old Austrian. 25 years ago, on March 2, 1998, she was kidnapped on her way to school and held captive in a dungeon near Vienna for eight and a half years.
Today she is an author. After three books about her 3096 days of captivity and its consequences, she wants to give other people tips for a successful life in her fourth book “Show Strength”. “My book is not intended to be a guide, but rather a gentle reminder to get to know yourself and thus discover your strengths,” says Kampusch. Perhaps she lacks some life experience, but “the imprisonment didn’t prevent me from developing maturity and knowledge,” says the very sorted and level-headed woman.
Her case made headlines around the world. On August 23, 2006, Kampusch used a favorable moment in Strasshof near Vienna to escape from her tormentor. At the age of ten she was kidnapped and put in a five square meter small, windowless dungeon, which was secured to the outside with a thick steel door. The perpetrator, communications engineer Wolfgang Priklopil, wanted to shape her into a woman entirely according to his ideas. When Kampusch manages to escape, the 44-year-old Priklopil kills himself.
The regained freedom did not only have bright sides for Kampusch. On the one hand she experiences a lot of sympathy and genuine interest in her fate, on the other hand she also experiences attacks and envy. Especially on the internet, people would have accused her of being greedy for the media and greedy for money, she recalls. “I seem to polarize.” She writes books and designs a jewelry collection – and claims to do good. “I’ve always wanted to do charity work.” In Sri Lanka, for example, she financed the construction of a children’s hospital.
Her story is considered to be the case of the longest child deprivation of liberty without death in Europe. Kidnapped at the age of 10 – escaped at the age of 18. In between, Kampusch has to live in her dungeon and always hope that her tormentor will provide her with food and drink. As a teenager, Priklopil handcuffs her to himself and sexually abuses her. Later he gives her more freedom. The girl takes over cleaning and kitchen duties and is allowed to enter the other floors of the house.
Priklopil’s violent outbursts were bad, Kampusch writes in her diary: “Beating me several times, black bruises below the shoulder blades and along the spine.” In February 2006 Kampusch will be 18 years old. In the following months she is allowed to go into the garden, to the bakery, to the hardware store. According to her statement, Priklopil intimidated Kampusch by threatening to kill her if she escaped. Finally she dares.
After the happy ending, it is becoming increasingly clear that the authorities have probably investigated sloppily. According to later analysis, important clues are overlooked or not looked closely enough. Witnesses say that Natasha was dragged into a white van. Shortly thereafter, the white van from Priklopil is checked, but nothing suspicious is found. On April 14, a police officer who vaguely knows Priklopil gave the tip that the communications engineer was a “loner” with a sexually motivated “penchant for children.”
It is a perpetrator profile par excellence, delivered by a police officer – but the trail silted up. Kampusch could possibly have been free again six weeks after her kidnapping. A later commission, chaired by the head of the German Federal Criminal Police Office at the time, Jörg Ziercke, like other commissions, denounced the investigators’ mistakes.
Kampusch, who lives in Vienna, is looking ahead. You have refilled your energy storage. “I’m in nature a lot and I spend time with my horse.” She finally wants to work more with people and maybe do an internship in the social sector, she says. She also wants to be more active when it comes to sports. “I’m positive and hopeful.”
