Posted on 04/30/2008 2:41:19 PM PDT by PROCON
The Austrian children kept in a cellar for their entire lives speak their own language using animalistic noises rather than words. Stefan Fritzl, 18, and his brother Felix, five, learned to talk by watching a television in the dungeon where they were held with their mother Elisabeth Fritzl, 42. But their form of communciation is only partly intelligible to Austrian police officers.
Police chief Leopold Etz, 50, who has met the two boys, said: “It is only half true that they can speak. They communicate with noises that are a mixture of growling and cooing.
“If they want to say something so others understand them as well they have to focus and really concentrate which seems to be extremely exhausting for them.
“Felix prefers to crawl but he can walk upright if he wants.”
Dr Berthold Kepplinger, who examined the brothers at a neuropsychiatric clinic near their home town of Amstetten, said: “They communicate between each other but this is far from a normal way of expressing oneself.
“Their mother taught them to read and write a bit but Elisabeth had lost much of her childhood knowledge after her imprisonment from the age of 18.
“They had no books and the main source of education was the television.”
When he was rescued Felix pointed to the moon, which he was seeing for the first time, and said: “Is that God up there?”
He then made excited gurgling noises when he saw a cow.
Doctors said that since he emerged from his prison he is constantly excited and keeps trying to hit the air with his hand.
When he saw the sun for the first time he was even more excited than when he discovered the moon.
He made a squeaking noise and tried to look directly at the sun. When he realised he couldn’t he kept covering his face with his hand.
When police took him in a lift at the hospital he was petrified and clung on to his mother as the floor moved.
Police said he was stunned when one officers started talking into a mobile phone.
Felix was also excited about the police officer's mobile phones. He was stunned by the ring tones and even more when one of the policemen used his mobile phone to talk.
The youngster also often hums an unknown tune to himself which police believe his mother used to get him to sleep.
Stefan and Felix’s sister Kerstin, 19, became ill in the dungeon and is in a coma.
All three have weakened immune systems, are suffering from vitamin D deficiency and are anaemic.
None of them had ever been seen by a doctor or a dentist and Kerstin has already lost most of her teeth.
The low ceilings in their prison left them all with cramped physical posture.
Elisabeth has aged so much she looks like a sister to her mother Rosemarie, 68.
Austrian psychotherapist and university professor Rotraud Perner said: “A lot will depend on what the children have been told, whether the mother explained to them their life in captivity.
“They may have created their own illusory world. However, a normal life could be possible for them.”
The children will need to wear sun-block cream as their skin gets used to sunlight.
This story just keeps getting stranger everyday.
I am at a loss for words....
I am at a loss for words....
Not to diminish this but the ‘Nature or Nurture’ psychologists are going to have a field day with these poor kids.
I’ve completely missed this story? I gather, some man imprisoned the mother from the age of 18 and she had children while in captivity?
How tragic. How horrible.
This is so awful ... capital punishment is in order.
Hell is worse than ANY prison on this earth.
This guy is EVIL.
I’d happily volunteer to be on the firing squad to erase all those guilty in this.
My brother-in-law is a big shot in a state prison for the mentally insane criminals. He has mentioned more than once of family visits that involve a great deal of howling and animal type noises.
That is HORRIBLE!!!
I wonder what kind of physical problems from the inbreeding as well.
Just beyond my comprehension.
all 7 of her children were fathered by her father. this really is the most heartbreaking story I’ve read in a very long time.
I've heard a lot of wierd stuff in my time, but this one tops them all for cruelty, malice, and evil. Poor kids, poor girl/woman. Undoing 20+ years of treatment like that will take serious prayer and therapy. Plus getting adjusted to life outside the dungeon.
15 years for multiple rapes, child abuse, false imprisonment and incest?
unFREAKINbelievable!
Maybe some one can post original story?!
Worse.
He imprisioned HIS DAUGHTER and had seven children with her and held her and the children captive. She is 40 something now.
It would probably be a good idea to put these kids in a sort of drastic-measures full-immersion language training program with expert pediatric language and speech therapists.
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