The life of Elisabeth Fritzl did not remain the same after she turned 18. This young woman had spent most of her youth and adult life in a soundproof cellar, an environment worse than any prison punishment ever given to an inmate. The story of Elisabeth Fritzl is full of torture and boundary violations she faced from her father for over 24 years, something some would not even imagine in their worst nightmare.
On August 28, 1984, Josef Fritzl asked his daughter Elisabeth, who was 18 years old at the time, to help him in the basement of their house in Amsteten, Austria. He said they needed to carry a door for the cellar, which he was fixing. But it was a terrible trick. Josef actually used this as an opportunity to knock Elisabeth out with a towel soaked in ether. This was the beginning of a heinous act. Elisabeth didn’t know that her father was planning to lock her up and exploit her for 24 long years.
Josef had been planning this underground prison for a long time. He got official permission to build it in the late 1970s. Back then, it wasn’t hard to get permission to build underground. It was during the Cold War, and Lower Austria was close to the Soviet Union. People thought it was normal to have a nuclear bunker in their home, even more normal than adding a conservatory or extending the kitchen in Britain.
The local government provided him with financial assistance to help build his house. People in the neighborhood watched him closely as he used a big machine to move dirt from under his house. He lived at Ybbsstraße 40 in a neat town called Amstetten.
He worked hard to plan everything perfectly. He got materials like concrete and steel from his old job contacts. His house had eight doors to get to a special cellar. The last door, Elisabeth helped him install without knowing what it was for.
Elisabeth often talked about leaving. The year before her disappearance, she had left and gone into hiding in Vienna, only to be returned by the police a few weeks later.
On August 28, 1984, 18-year-old Elisabeth Fritzl disappeared. Her mother, Rosemarie, quickly filed a missing report of her daughter to the police. She was very worried. For weeks, there was no news about Elisabeth, and her parents thought the worst had happened. Then, suddenly, they received a letter from Elisabeth. She said she was tired of living with her family and had run away.
Her father, Josef told the police he didn’t know where she could have gone. He suggested that perhaps she had joined a religious cult group, something she had mentioned before. However, the truth was far more sinister. Josef knew precisely where his daughter was. Elisabeth was being held captive beneath her own house, about 20 feet below the very spot where the police were standing. Unbeknownst to her, this underground chamber would become her prison for the next 24 years.
She was tied with an iron chain attached to her bed and left alone inside the cellar where Josef exploited her countless times, resulting in seven babies who themselves often had to watch the abuse as they grew older. Over the following years, more letters would come.
In 1993, a baby girl named Lisa, who was nine months old, was left on the doorstep of a couple. The next year, another child named Monika, who was ten months old, was left in a stroller. This time, Rosemarie received a phone call asking her to take care of the child. In 1997, a third child named Alexander, who was fifteen months old, arrived.
[Her first two children, Kerstin and Stefan, were born in 1988 and 1990. They stayed in a bunker until 2008. Lisa was born in 1992. The next year, Fritzl let them make the bunker bigger. Elisabeth and her children used their hands to dig the soil. The fourth child, Monika, was born in 1994. After that, twin boys were born in 1994. One of them, Michael, died when he was only a few days old. Fritzl cremated him. The other twin, Alexander, was taken upstairs. The last child, Felix, was born in December 2002.]
To social workers, Josef seemed like a man with a daughter who had left him with three young grandchildren to raise. But in reality, he had been keeping his daughter in a hidden cellar, which he had started turning into a prison cell many years earlier.
Josef told her what to write in letters, and she wrote them while she was in her father’s prison. Sometimes, she had to travel long distances in his car to send letters to his wife, Rosemarie. In the letters, Elisabeth said she was okay but couldn’t take care of the kids. She felt sad about not being with her children but was glad that the ones who lived upstairs would have a better life than those who stayed downstairs.
Elisabeth and her children couldn’t leave until 2008. Elisabeth, who was 42 at the time, got worried about her oldest daughter, Kerstin. Kerstin was very sick, but she couldn’t get proper medical help because she was kept in the basement with the other children. Elisabeth pleaded with Josef to take Kerstin to the hospital so she wouldn’t die.
Josef finally agreed. On April 19, 2008, Kerstin, who was 19 years old, was taken quickly to the hospital because her kidneys had stopped working. Doctors were shocked when they saw how sick Kerstin was. They didn’t have any medical information about her. So, they asked to see her mother.
Josef, as he had with the other children, said he had found the teenager left outside his home. However, medical staff became suspicious and tipped off the police. Kerstin was bleeding from the mouth, had lost almost all her teeth, and was malnourished and deathly pale.
The police questioned Kerstin for a whole week and asked people for any information about her family, but nobody said anything. The police started to think Josef might be involved, so they looked into Elisabeth Fritzl’s case again. They checked all the letters Josef said Elisabeth wrote and found some things that didn’t make sense.
Then, by chance, Josef released Elisabeth from the underground cellar on April 26, 2008. Elisabeth hurried to the hospital to see her sick daughter. When she got there, the hospital staff became suspicious and called the police. That night, Elisabeth was arrested and asked questions about her daughter’s illness and what her father had said. Elisabeth only agreed to talk if the police promised she wouldn’t have to see her father again. Then, she told them about the 24 years of her ordeal.
She told the police that her father started molesting her when she was 11. The police immediately arrested Josef Fritzl, away that night. After the police caught him, the children in the basement were freed. Rosemarie Fritzl left the house. She said she didn’t know about what was happening. Josef said the same thing. The people who rented the apartment upstairs didn’t know anything either. Josef said the noises were because of broken pipes and a loud heater.
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Currently, Elisabeth Fritzl resides in a secluded Austrian hamlet known as ‘Village X,’ where her home is under continual CCTV surveillance and patrolled by the police. The family declines interviews and prefers not to engage with the media. Despite being in her mid-fifties, her last photograph dates back to when she was 16 years old, a measure taken to preserve her privacy and protect her from media intrusion.
As for Josef Fritzl, in court, he denied enslaving his daughter. His lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, attempted to portray him as a caring and protective father who isolated his daughter from negative influences. However, in March 2009, Josef, aged 73, confessed to all charges and was sentenced to life in prison. He is currently serving his sentence at Austria’s Garsten Abbey Jail.
During this tumultuous time, Elisabeth had conflicts with her mother over her failure to confront her father’s abusive behavior. However, the two have since reconciled and now live together. After undergoing extensive mental health treatment, Elisabeth, now 52, found love with Thomas Wagner in 2019. (Source)
