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Natascha Maria Kampusch was born on February 17, 1988 to parents Brigitta Sirny & Ludwig Koch in Vienna, Austria where they lived in the public housing projects on the outskirts of the city. She had two adult sisters & five nieces & nephews. Natascha indicated that she got used to dealing with disturbed people because many that lived in her neighborhood were alcoholics, some mentally disturbed. They often discussed conspiracy theories after they had failed at life. 

After Natascha’s parents separated, her mom was quick to slap & insult her & taught her to have “a stiff upper lip.”  Her father was affable but irresponsible & often brought her with when he visited bars & stayed out late, drinking with friends. By age ten, Natascha was coping with life & her feelings of depression by compulsively eating. She often felt lonely & fantasizing about suicide. She daydreamed about throwing herself in front of a car to make her mom sorry. She also dreamed of an escape, getting a job & starting her own life away from there. In later years, Natasscha reflected that her parents were generally very loving but admits that after the divorce, she did feel neglected.

On Sunday, March 1, 1998, Natascha’s mother became enraged when her father returned their daughter late from a visit. She told Natascha that she would not be allowed to see her father anymore. The next day, Monday, March 2nd, as Natascha got ready to leave for school, she slipped out of the house without saying goodbye. She had never walked alone to school before as she headed to Brioschieweg primary school.  As her mom waited for Natascha’s return home from school that day, her worry grew when she didn’t come home. After calling the school, she was told that Natascha hadn’t been in class that day & immediately called the police to report her daughter missing. Days went by before a 12-year-old witness reported seeing Natascha being dragged into a white minibus driven by two men. 

As Natascha made her way to school on the morning she went missing, she noticed a man who was neat & conservative in appearance, standing by a delivery van. As she began to walk past him, the man grabbed her & threw her into the van. The van was not driven by two men as the 12-year-old reported, but only one, 35-year-old Wolfgang Priklopil.

The first words she spoke to her captor were, “What size shoes do you wear?” She continued firing questions at him because she’d watched Austria’s version of Crimewatch & she knew it was important to get as much information from a captor as possible. She asked him if he planned to molest her & he replied, “No, you’re too young for that.” 

He drove her thirty minutes away to his home in his wealthy suburb of Strasshof, 15 miles north of Vienna & carried her to a hollowed-out concrete wall hidden on the other side of a metal hatch that was hidden behind a cupboard under Priklopil’s garage. It was a sixteen foot x sixteen foot cellar that was bare, soundproofed, windowless & had the constant rattle of a plastic ventilation fan. From the outside, the house looked completely normal & sat in the leafy suburb, neighbors completely unaware of what was happening inside

As he grabbed at her school bag to take it away, Natascha asked if she could keep it & he told her she couldn’t because he feared she’d hidden a transmitter inside that she could use to call for help. It was an obviously paranoid statement seeing as Natascha was only ten years old & it was her bag for school, but she was accustomed to grown-ups doing & saying odd things that she didn’t understand. 

As Natascha went to bed that first night in her dungeon, she asked Priklopil to tuck her in, which he did; he also read her a story & cheerfully gave her a goodnight kiss. The reality of what was happening to Natascha set in as the door shut behind him, leaving her alone & terrified.

In the meantime, a massive search began & police examined 776 minibusses, including the one that Priklopil drove. This was one of the largest missing person searches in Austria & other than the sighting of the van, there were no leads. When police came to his home to speak with him, Priklopil told them that he was home alone on the morning of the kidnapping & later used his minibus to transport rubble from the construction of his home. 

Initially, the relationship between Natascha & Priklopil was uncomplicated & he could at times, be kind. He kept his hidden lair a secret from the outside world & no one was aware of what was going on, including his mother & best friend who regularly visited the house. He brought Natascha gifts that included fancy croissants & expensive toys, such as a train set & chocolate eggs for their first Easter together. He basically provided her with any request she made during this time. In order to cope, Natascha regressed to the age of a dependent toddler. He lied to her & told her that her parents refused to pay the ransom he’d demanded because they didn’t love her. He told her that since she’d seen his face, he could never let her go.

During the first six months of her captivity, Natascha wasn’t allowed to leave her chamber at any time & as time passed, she was allowed upstairs in the rest of the house, but each night & each day that Priklopil was at work, she was sent back to sleep.The electricity would be turned off every night at 8 pm sharp. She was given school books & was homeschooled.

As time went on, the gifts became bizarre & less thoughtful & he would bring her things like scotch tape & mouthwash, but regardless, she was thrilled to receive any presents, even something as simple as orange juice. He would tell her he was an Egyptian god & she found that the easiest thing for her to do, was to just go along with whatever he told her. He also indicated that he admired Adolf Hitler & wanted her to feel like a Nazi victim.

When Priklopil bathed Natascha, she would imagine that she was at a spa & when he gave her something to eat, she imagined that he was doing all of this for her in order to be gentlemanly & to serve her. In actuality, she was fully aware of the situation & the fact that it was humiliating but used these fantasies to get through her days.

As days turned to years & Natascha entered her early teenage years, she found it more difficult to comply with his delusions & requests so she began to fight back with small acts of rebellion, such as refusing to call him “Maestro” as he requested. He decided the solution to her getting older & bolder was to break her completely & remold her. It was his goal to establish dominance & he expected her to obey without question. This domination came with violent beatings, withholding of food & keeping Natascha in darkness for prolonged periods of time which started around age 14 or 15, four-five years after her abduction. She recalled him randomly stabbing her knee & then yelling at her after, for bleeding & making a stain. 

After talking back,  a punishment would follow that led to days of being locked in her dungeon without food. After one instance, Priklopil eventually threw some carrots at her & asked, “Are you going to be good now?” At one point during her captivity, Natascha’s weight dropped as low as 84#. Priklopil was sure that when they ate together, his portions were far larger than Natascha’s. 

Natascha realized she had no rights in the life she was living while he saw her as a person who was capable of manual labor. Upon the realization that Natascha could help him, he began allowing her to come up to the house to do his cleaning. She was forced to do her chores half naked with her gaze lowered & if she spoke out of turn, she would be beaten. The portion of her captivity that Natascha is not willing to discuss is the sexual abuse she sustained while in captivity. She described it as minor & even when he would shackle her to his bed, all he wanted to do was cuddle. 

Priklopil constructed an intercom system so he could yell insults at her through the night & bark orders or questions such as, “Have you brushed your teeth?” Because he had trained as an engineer at Siemens, he had technical abilities. As the years went by, his behavior became more & more uncontrolled, his outbursts of rage more frequent, his paranoia more extreme.

Natascha attributes her ability to survive from an experience that happened two years into captivity when she was twelve. She woke up in a cold sweat in utter darkness & began to fear that she was losing her grip. Because she was fully alone without a sane, solid adult in her life, she made the decision to become one herself. She saw an image of herself as an 18-year-old in a vivid vision & she told herself, “I will get you out of here, I promise you. Right now you are too small but when you turn 18 I will overpower the kidnapper & free you from your prison.”

As six more years ticked by, the beatings continued. Natascha discovered that the only way to stop them was to repeatedly hit herself in the face until he begged her to stop. In desperately low moments, she did attempt suicide, one time trying to slit her wrists with a knitting needle when she was fourteen. At times, her captor would be kind to her & apologize with gifts & talk to her about his dreams about their life together. When she turned fifteen, she began fighting back & punched Priklopil who then put her in a headlock, but her actions proved to herself that she hadn’t lost her self-respect. 

Natascha saw that he trusted her & felt comfortable to communicate with her & act out his illness. He wanted to create his own perfect little fantasy world with Natascha at the center of it; there, for him & him alone. Natasha chose not to hold only hatred toward Priklopil because s

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he realized that the hatred would eventually eat her up & rob her of the strength she needed to make it through.

He told Natascha that the Jews were responsible for 9/11 & he dyed her hair blond & told her that his vision was for her to be a kind of Aryan servant  & adoring companion. He convinced her that if she ever tried to escape, it would mean death for not only the both of them, but also many bystanders. He also lied & said that the doors & windows of her dungeon were booby-trapped with explosives.

He began taking Natascha on little trips which amounted to thirteen altogether, once skiing at a resort on the outskirts of Vienna where they spent a few hours. She said that during these outings, she had zero chance to escape. When out on trips or running various errands, she would come across strangers, but Natascha was too terrified to alert them of her situation or to run away because she was paralyzed with fear.

Years later, Priklopil’s business partner came by to borrow a trailer & described Natascha as relaxed & happy in appearance. Priklopil introduced her to his business partner as an acquaintance & didn’t tell him her name. The visit was brief & the business partner did question to himself if the woman was Priklopil’s girlfriend.

When Natascha turned 18, she turned to Priklopil & said, “You have brought a situation upon us in which only one of us can make it through alive. I really am grateful to you for not killing me & for taking such good care of me. That is very nice of you. But you can’t force me to stay with you. I am my own person with my own needs. This situation must come to an end.” She closed her eyes & waited for the beating that never came. When she opened them, she saw that he looked sad & defeated. 

A few weeks later it was August 23, 2006 & Priklopil was on the driveway with Natascha where she was cleaning & vacuuming his van. Priklopil took a phone call & walked away to avoid the noise of the vacuum. Natascha noticed her opportunity as she turned on her heel & simply walked out of the gate, leaving the vacuum running. It was the first time since 1998 that she was outside & alone. She ran through neighboring gardens & streets, asking passers-by to call the police, but they ignored her cries, suspicious of the frantic girl. After about five minutes, she knocked on the window of a 71-year-old neighbor & told them who she was. Police arrived at 1:04 pm & Natascha was taken to the station. She was identified by a scar on her body as well as the passport found in the room where she’d been held & DNA tests. Her overall health was good though she was pale & weighed only 106#; when she was taken at age ten, she weighed 99#. Her body mass index was as low as 14.8 (normal is 18.5-24.9) & she grew 5.9 inches during her captivity. She was soon reunited with her family.

Wolfgang Priklopil was an Austrian communications technician. He was born in Vienna on May 14, 1962 in a well-to-do family as an only child. He was said to be a bit of a loner who lived a life of solitude, having little to do with others. His father worked as a cognac salesman while his mom was a shoe saleswoman who he was close with. The house where he lived & imprisoned Natascha was built by his grandfather after World War II. During the Cold War period that began after the end of World War II, his grandfather & his father Karl, built a bomb shelter which is believed to be the origin of the cellar prison. In 1984, Priklopil took ownership of the house after his grandmother passed away. After he lost his job as a communications technician, he moved on to renovating homes & had only one friend in life. 

It had been eight years of captivity & as she left, she wondered if Priklopil would feel a sense of relief because of the stress she imagined it must have been to keep such a secret for so long. He went to his friend’s house in his red BMW sports car & as they drove around for three hours, he confessed it all, saying, “I am a kidnapper & a rapist.” He stopped the car, got out & walked to the train tracks where he laid down & waited until a train ran over his head, dying by suicide. His decapitated body was later found on a nearby train track & his car was found abandoned in a park later that day. He previously spoke to Natascha about what he would do if he was ever caught by police & said, “they would not catch him alive.”

After Natascha escaped & she began speaking with the media, she tried to explain the nuances of her relationship with Priklopil, making a comment such as, “I mourn for him” & it was assumed that she was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. When she was told of his death, police indicated that Natascha “cried inconsolably” & lit a candle for him at the morgue & accused police of killing him. She felt this label denied her ability to judge her own experiences & explained further that after spending such a length of time with a person, it would only be natural to adapt yourself to identify with your kidnapper. She feels that looking for normality within the framework of a crime is not a syndrome, it’s a survival strategy. 

Natascha has had therapy & counseling in order to come to terms with her past & she suffers from PTSD. She also struggles with issues related to food that stem from periods of starvation as a means of control in captivity, saying, “I am heavier, physically. And that’s the big problem, more than the mental issues.”

Some ask why Natascha didn’t try to escape sooner & she references a time when Priklopil shoved her in front of the front door, wearing nothing but underwear, her head had been shaved , she was half-starved & covered in bruises & said, “Come now, run. Let’s see how far you get. The world out there doesn’t want you anyway. Your place is here & only here.” She said that she was so humiliated that she couldn’t take a single step.

After her escape, she found the fame & attention that came with it “bothersome & disturbing.” She indicated that she’s met many unpleasantly curious people who refuse to keep their distance. She made an official statement after her escape & described her normal routine while in captivity: She & Priklopil would wake up early each morning & have breakfast together. Much of Natascha’s time in captivity involved housework & cooking for Priklopil. She would educate herself, using the books he gave her & she didn’t feel that she had missed anything during her captivity & noted, “I spared myself many things, I did not start smoking or drinking & I did not hang out in bad company.” She was given a TV & a radio to pass time, but after she was first taken, she was only allowed to watch pre-recorded shows to avoid seeing coverage of her disappearance. 

She described her home during captivity as “a place of despair.” Despite this, she later claimed two-thirds of Priklopil’s estate, while his mother owns the remaining third. Her goal is to protect it from vandals or from being torn down. She still visits the home on weekends because she fears it will “become a theme park.” She still cleans it to the specifications that Priklopil demanded of her, she pays any necessary bills, indicating that the house played a large role in her formative years. The cellar was filled in in 2011.

Since her escape, Natascha has gone on to write two books about the eight years of hell she endured; 3,096 Days was released in September 2010 & was later made into a film in 2013 & 10 Years of Freedom which was released in August 2016 & describes her life after she escaped.

Natascha went on to briefly work as a TV talk show host on an Austrian TV channel; she felt that during her time of imprisonment, she was forced to listen to Priklopil talk, one-on-one on a daily basis which resulted in her becoming a very good listener. The show started on June 1, 2008 & was titled “Natascha Kampusch Meets”, but ran for only three episodes. 

After dealing with cyberbullying after her ordeal, she went on to speak about the subject & indicated that online abuse became a part of her everyday life. In 2019, she released a book called Cyberjealous & indicated that the abuse got so out of control that she rarely left her home. She says she doesn’t want to hide & her goal for the book was to bring attention to the issue & explain how cyberbullying feels. She said that after she fled from an enemy, she suddenly had internet forums with thousands of enemies which she feels happened because the public believed that she wasn’t behaving how a kidnapping victim should.

On top of the cyberbullying, Natascha has also been stalked. One man said he was in love with her & wanted to marry her & the harassment went on for several years, despite her mom getting a restraining order against him. 

Natascha has donated many of the proceeds she’s earned for interviews she’s participated in, sending about 300,000 euros to women in Africa & Spain as well as to a woman, Elizabeth Fritzl, who was held captive by her father. She also became a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Natascha has goals of going on to become a psychologist but before she does this, she would like to learn to be a goldsmith & a shoemaker. When she was asked if she deals with flashbacks, she indicated, “I don’t forget it, but right now it’s not important. I want to live in the now. But sometimes, yes, I have flashbacks.” She feels these flashbacks occur when she’s troubled by a situation where someone is acting in a similar way. For example, when she sees a man putting a woman down or acting possessively toward them. She’s also triggered when she feels someone is forcing her to eat something when she isn’t hungry. While in her dungeon during captivity, food was often withheld from her, but when the opposite is happening, she feels it robs her of her dignity. 

Natascha currently loves spending her time riding her horse, Loreley. She’s learned to ignore the hate directed at her & only accept the nice things, “And Loreley is always nice.”

References:

1. The Guardian: Natascha Kampusch: Inside the head of my torturer
2. Wikipedia: Natascha Kampusch
3. The US Sun: Lone Wolf: Who was Wolfgang Priklopil & how did he die?
4. A&E: How Natascha Kampusch survived eight years of torment after being abducted as a child
5. ati: The harrowing tale of how Natascha Kampush survived eight years in her kidnapper’s cellar
6. The Guardian: Natascha Kampusch: Inside the head of my torturer
7. GoodtoKnow: What happened to Natascha Kampusch & where is Wolfgang Priklopil now? Channel 5 documentary The Girl in the Cellar looks at the true crime case
8. Medium: It’s not Stockholm Syndrome: The Strange Abduction of Natascha Kampusch
9. Mirror: Exclusive: Natascha Kampusch: I still visit the house of horrors where I was kept as a sex slave for 8 years