The story of the Austrian Nataschi Kampusch is one of the most famous cases of kidnapping in Europe. The girl was kidnapped as a ten-year-old in 1998 and held captive as a sex slave for eight years. Now her family has described in a new documentary, že suffers from serious psychological problems and spends most of her time closed in her own world.
Natascha Kampuschová was kidnapped on March 2, 1998 by Wolfgang Přiklopil when she was going to school alone. The man, then a technician in his thirties, pulled her into his white van and drove her to the house where he lived with his mother. There he kept her in a secret cell under the garage floor.
Kampuschová later described that the space was approximately five by five meters, it was soundproof and without windows. She spent eight years in captivity. According to her statements, she was beaten, starved and forced to serve her captor as a sex slave. She also stated that she was tied to the bed at night and had to clean half-naked. According to her, the kidnapper beat her up to two hundred times a week.
She remembered the abduction very clearly and described it in the media. “I said to myself, I don’t want to pass him. And I thought, ‘That’s strange, why is that person standing there?’ It didn’t make sense. I wanted to cross to the other side of the road just to be safe. But then I said to myself: ‘No, I have to hold on so I can say to myself, well, you had the courage to walk past him,'” she said. However, when she passed him, Príklopil grabbed her and pushed her into the back of the vehicle. He then took her to the house and locked her in an underground room.
She later stated that the kidnapper believed he had the right to control her. “He seemed to think he had the right to control me and use violence,” Kampuschová said. She also added that he warned her that he would kill her if she tried to escape. The captivity ended in August 2006 when she managed to escape. Shortly after Přiklopil learned about her escape, he jumped under the train.
After her release, Kampusch wrote a book about her abduction, a film was made about her, and she hosted her own television talk show for several years. As recently as 2023, she stated that she was trying to look to the future with optimism. For example, she devoted herself to designing her own jewelry collection and participated in a hospital construction project in Sri Lanka.
But now the family has admitted that her condition has significantly worsened. Her sister Claudia Nestelberger spoke in a new documentary by Austrian public television ORF. “Everyone knows how Natasha used to talk on camera. That’s completely gone now,” she said. According to her, today she spends most of her time closed in on herself. “He’s mostly in his own world. He’s back in a kind of prison. It’s heartbreaking and we feel helpless.” added.
