Normally placid Austria has been rocked by another case of child imprisonment, writes t k vogel |
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After his divorce in 1998, a judge in the northern Austrian city of Linz
found it more and more difficult to keep in touch with his three daughters,
aged six, ten, and 13, who were living with his ex-wife. Soon it became
impossible.
Every time he showed up in front of their home in a fancy suburb, his
ex-wife would come up with new excuses as to why he couldn't see them. They were
sick, she said, or staying with their grandmother.
But what was really happening to them was beyond their father's worst fears.
After the divorce, the unstable woman completely disintegrated. She
petitioned to have her three daughters taken out of school and to teach them
at home (the request was approved, perhaps thanks to her legal education).
She then locked them up in the house,
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| The girls gave the mice nicknames and began speaking in their own, secret language |
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removed the light bulbs and drew all the curtains. The household fell apart. Mice began appearing, and the girls
almost suffocated in the filth. They gave the mice nicknames and began
speaking in their own secret language.
This went on for seven years. The frantic father tried all legal means to
gain access to his daughters, without success. Neighbours complained about a
dog barking all night and about the increasingly desolate condition of the
house. Some were alarmed because they never saw the girls anymore. Their
appeals to the police went unheard. Only when a neighbour threatened to sue
a government official did the authorities intervene in October 2005.
The story was kept under wraps for more than a year; it broke on Saturday,
when a horrified public learned the details from an article in the
mass-circulation daily Oesterreich ahead of the woman's trial.
The media reaction has not yet approached the frenzy following the dramatic escape of
18-year-old Natascha Kampusch, who had been held captive for eight years,
but there 
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