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Austria kidnap girl mourns captor
BBC ^ | 8/28/06 | n/a

Posted on 08/28/2006 5:19:03 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim

An Austrian teenager recovering after spending eight years in an underground cell is grieving for her captor.

Natascha Kampusch, 18, said Wolfgang Priklopil was "part of my life, that's why in a certain way I'm mourning him".

He killed himself by jumping in front of a train after her escape last week. It is still unclear why he abducted her as she was on her way to school.

"Give me time until I can tell my story myself," Ms Kampusch said in her first statement read by her psychiatrist.

She said she understood the media "curiosity" about her life with the kidnapper, but insisted that she would not answer intimate questions.

"Maybe I'll tell a therapist one day or someone else when I feel the need to. Or maybe never. The intimacy only belongs to me."

Ms Kampusch said she and Priklopil had eaten meals and watched television together, and had jointly done the housework.

Priklopil "was not my lord, although he wanted to be - I was just as strong", she added.

"To give you a metaphor - he carried me in his arms but also trampled me underfoot."

She is at a secure location with psychological carers, and police say she has not asked to see her parents again after a brief reunion.

In her statement on Monday, she said she realised "how shocking and worrying" her experience must seem to people.

But she said she did not feel that Priklopil had robbed her of her childhood.

Together they had furnished her room "adequately" soon after he had abducted her, Ms Kampusch said.

She is reported to have wept inconsolably when she was told the man she had to call "master" was dead.

Mother frustrated

Police suspect she may have been suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome" - a condition where some abductees gradually begin to sympathise with their captors.

Her parents, who separated after her abduction, have complained that they have not been told where she is staying.

Her mother Brigitta Sirny has pleaded to be allowed to see her. She asked in a newspaper interview on Sunday: "Why can I not see my child?"

Austrian police officer Gerhard Lang said the police were not banning contact with Ms Kampusch.

He said she had voluntarily gone to a "safe place" to receive psychological care and protection.

Ms Kampusch, said to be pale and to weigh less than she did as a 10-year-old, managed to flee her abductor on Wednesday after he moved away to take a phone call as she vacuumed his car, it has emerged.

Priklopil threw himself under a train within hours of her escape.

It is not clear what the kidnapper's motives were and whether Natascha was sexually abused during her captivity.

Photos released by police show the underground hiding place in his house, in Strasshof village outside Vienna, where he had purportedly kept her.

The pictures show a small, cluttered, windowless room with wash basin, toilet, bed and cupboards and narrow concrete stairs leading up to a trapdoor.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: austria; kidnapping; nataschakampusch; stockholmsyndrome; wolfgangpriklopil
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1 posted on 08/28/2006 5:19:05 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim
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To: kiriath_jearim

"It is still unclear why he abducted her as she was on her way to school."

Oh really?


2 posted on 08/28/2006 5:21:46 PM PDT by samm1148
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To: samm1148

Only unclear to a liberal with no thought process.


3 posted on 08/28/2006 5:23:23 PM PDT by Parley Baer
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To: kiriath_jearim

Does anyone other than me think that somehow a defective gene must have made it into the brains of all Europeans sometime after the European Americans emigrated to America?


4 posted on 08/28/2006 5:24:43 PM PDT by Brilliant
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To: kiriath_jearim

the kid has obviously gone mental and lives in a fantasy world of her own creation . Stockholm Syndrome


5 posted on 08/28/2006 5:24:50 PM PDT by LeoWindhorse
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To: Parley Baer

I really hope the media will let this girl be.


6 posted on 08/28/2006 5:24:53 PM PDT by Grig
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To: Brilliant

I think that WWII must have sapped so much testosterone out of Europe, that all that remained was soggy milquetoast


7 posted on 08/28/2006 5:30:43 PM PDT by Homer1
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To: LeoWindhorse

If she identifies so much with him, WHY DID SHE RUN? Her statements don't match up with her actions.


8 posted on 08/28/2006 5:30:47 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: Parley Baer
There is the slim possibilty that he didn't force or have any sexual relationship;see the movie the "collector".Or he may have fantasized he was her" father ";perhaps he was obsessed with having a child but was afraid of grown women.All kinds of bizarre variations are possible.

He may only been guilty of kidnapping,criminal confinement,........

9 posted on 08/28/2006 5:30:59 PM PDT by hoosierham (Waddaya mean Freedom isn't free ?;will you take a creditcard?)
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To: Brilliant
Does anyone other than me think that somehow a defective gene must have made it into the brains of all Europeans sometime after the European Americans emigrated to America?

Yes. When you think about it, those who would not accept the status quo were the ones to leave. They went knowing they would likely never see their homeland and family again. I am in awe of those who had the fortitude and determination to leave. It sure wasn't those who were willing to be walked over.

I think it had a twofold effect. One is that it drained those with the most spirit and the other is that those who were left raised their children the way they felt so it reinforced the lack of fortitude, shall we say.

I think that's why Americans are such an independent lot and so willing to stand up to terrorism, they inherited the spunk and mindset from their ancestors.

10 posted on 08/28/2006 5:36:42 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom

Her statements are bizarre, but, holy moly, how rational can she be at this point, without the benefit of years of therapy? Poor kid.

Prayers.


11 posted on 08/28/2006 5:37:45 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Never trust Democrats with national security.)
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To: LeoWindhorse

The text of her actual letter to the media makes her seem far more sensible than these reports.

Sometimes you have to go to original documents, and not rely on half-baked interpretations.


12 posted on 08/28/2006 5:40:14 PM PDT by proxy_user
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To: Brilliant

lol...


13 posted on 08/28/2006 5:40:39 PM PDT by sit-rep (http://trulineint.com/latestposts.asp)
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To: Brilliant; metmom
...Does anyone other than me think that somehow a defective gene must have made it into the brains of all Europeans sometime after the European Americans emigrated to America? ...

Our ancestors threw off the yoke of tyranny and left Europe. Those that remained embraced it.

14 posted on 08/28/2006 5:41:11 PM PDT by FReepaholic (This tagline could indicate global warming.)
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To: FReepaholic

Now, let us all resist the temptation to become too complacent, fat and lazy, to get up and do what needs to be done - like has happened to a lot of people in the bastions of liberalism. From what I've seen in the case of New Orleans, a lot of the people who escaped from the place during the disaster, if they were willing to get up and do what needs to be done - got jobs and made a total break with a place that was not all that helpful to live in unless you don't mind the constant danger of flooding, levees breaking and corrupt politicians who use the levee repair money for roodypoo and then blame Bush.


15 posted on 08/28/2006 6:15:11 PM PDT by Twinkie (Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.)
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To: Brilliant

you overlooked this gem



MFrom The Post-Standard

Chamber of horrors

A windowless, underground room. A foam bed. A grate with a metal chain. A bucket for a toilet. Beatings, rape, humiliation. Five women tell the same horror story of being dragged off the street into a dungeon in Dewitt and losing all contact with the outside world.
May 4, 2003

By Mike Fish
Staff writer

http://www.syracuse.com/news/jamelske/poststandard/index.ssf?/news/jamelske/stories/dungeon.html


16 posted on 08/28/2006 6:23:41 PM PDT by Ouderkirk (Don't you think it's interesting how death and destruction seems to happen wherever Muslims gather?)
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To: metmom
If she identifies so much with him, WHY DID SHE RUN? Her statements don't match up with her actions.


She explained it best when she said, " he carried me in his arms but also trampled me underfoot."

She very obviously developed a coping mechanism that eventually became fused with her identity. We all need social human contact. Deprived of such a necessity so long, we become desperate. Very simply, "baggers cannot be choosers."
She was dependent on him for all social interaction. She had to identify with him, he was the only one for her to identify with. And she loved him, because he was the only person for her to love. Just the same, she had to have fear for him, because he was the only one for her to fear. He had complete power over her.

Is there a better word, that ambivalence?
17 posted on 08/28/2006 6:25:21 PM PDT by LauraleeBraswell (Try reading the article before you post)
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To: kiriath_jearim

Why the he** can't the mother see her...did the shrink say "no"?


18 posted on 08/28/2006 6:28:23 PM PDT by demsux
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To: metmom



Also, I have to add.


When we are exposed to anything,over a long period of time, we begin to see it as normal.


19 posted on 08/28/2006 6:28:36 PM PDT by LauraleeBraswell (Try reading the article before you post)
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To: metmom
Yes. When you think about it, those who would not accept the status quo were the ones to leave. They went knowing they would likely never see their homeland and family again. I am in awe of those who had the fortitude and determination to leave. It sure wasn't those who were willing to be walked over.

As an American history buff, I'd say you nailed it. That is where the independent American spirit came from while those left behind in Europe where more easily trodden upon.

20 posted on 08/28/2006 6:35:07 PM PDT by Inyo-Mono (If you don't want people to get your goat, don't tell them where it's tied.)
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