Natascha Kampusch - 10 Years of Freedom

Natascha Kampusch

10 Years of Freedom

Natascha Kampusch
with Heike Gronemeier

10 Years of Freedom

Translated by Jill Kreuer

Dachbuch Verlag
Published by Dachbuch Verlag GmbH, Vienna
ISBN 978-3-9504426-1-8
10 Jahre Freiheit first published in Germany by Ullstein Buchverlage 2016
First published in English by Dachbuch Verlag 2017
Copyright 2017 Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH, Berlin
Translation 2017 Jill Kreuer
All rights reserverd
Typeset by Dachbuch Verlag GmbH, Vienna
Cover design by Dachbuch Verlag GmbH, Vienna
Ebook by Dachbuch Verlag GmbH, Vienna
Cover photo by Kristof Gyselinck

Dedicated to all the courageous women who are fighting for their independence in the hopes of being free to live the life that they choose.

Dedicated to all those who have succeeded in finding a resolution to a seemingly hopeless situation.

I also dedicate this book to all those forced to experience terrible violence and abuse in childhood without ever receiving outside help. I hope that one day they will be able to overcome their pain and rediscover their true selves. Do not give up, no matter how long the journey before you may appear to be. The last ten years have shown me above all that freedom first takes root in the soul, slowly making its way from deep inside to reach the outside world.

Contents

Prologue

Believe in yourself you are of value. Find comfort it will be okay. Be strong.
Persevere you will make it. You will be rewarded. Courage. There is always hope.
Never give up! Trust yourself!! Trust in the future. Everything will be okay. Good luck!
If you set a goal for yourself and work toward it, you will reach your objective. Nothing can kill you. Be brave. Everything others do to you should not be your problem. Free yourself.
Hard work pays off. In the end you always get what you want . What doesnt kill you makes you stronger.
The path to your goal may be difficult, but it will be easier with every step you take!
You can take everything they dish out if you must. Whenever he rips you to shreds, or is cruel and indifferent, it is not your problem. It is his!

I wrote all of these lines (including all of the spelling and punctuation mistakes in the original German) during my captivity using a number of different coloured pencils on the back of a wall calendar. Additionally, I even circled a number of phrases that I thought were particularly important. My handwriting was a bit awkward. There was not a lot of room on the page, resulting in one sentence, one line flowing seamlessly into the next. Just like everything in that tiny room flowed together. Days and nights, minutes and hours, light and darkness. Dreams and reality, tense wakefulness and restless sleep. A life, shrunk down to just a few square metres, surrounded by thick, massive walls. Untraceable, perhaps long forgotten and abandoned, as my kidnapper constantly tried to convince me.

When I wrote these lines, I was 10 or 11 years old. I dont remember exactly. I was convinced that these lines, these phrases that gave me courage would only be of importance down here in my underground dungeon. That they would help me through the many years of my captivity, however long that would be. That they would help me find separation between myself and my kidnapper and his actions, no matter what he did to me. Back then I most certainly never thought that these words would be of importance to me once my captivity was ended.

The massive walls of my dungeon, over a half-metre thick and made from gravel, concrete and metal, would be replaced by other walls after my escape. At first glance, these are much more transparent, seemingly easier to penetrate. But even today I have been unable to fully overcome them. Also because new walls are continually being added. Like fortification rings limiting my newfound freedom again and again, the freedom I had placed so much hope in, that I had envisioned as being so infinitely good and wonderful during my captivity. These are limits that I could run at as much as I liked, and they never gave an inch. Limits that seem so arbitrary, thereby depriving me of resources for overcoming them. Running at these walls has always been a setback to my growth, to my attempt to reconcile myself with life, my life.

Many of these rings originated from the outside, arising from the publics interest in me, which at some point knew no bounds. There was a great deal of empathy and honest compassion, but also a lack of tact and sensitivity to ethics and morals, as well as to my needs as a victim, even though I had never wanted to see myself that way. In the beginning messages of sympathy were mixed in with the demands and expectations, and facts that were actually quite clear gave way to speculation and crude theories. Many of those who investigated the crime or became involved after my escape failed to consider the people they affected, seeing only an opportunity to become famous, if only for the fleeting minutes of a single interview.

As far as that is concerned, the kidnapping resulted in numerous victims, both direct and indirect. This includes my parents and my family. I know that they went through hell many times over in the eight and a half years of my captivity, torn apart by self-recrimination and the inability to bring about any change in their situation. Accused and condemned, eyed mistrustfully, wavering between hope and resignation, and the willing prey of the media looking to nab the ultimate inside story. My classmates, who in their shock turned the blame on themselves and lived in fear of experiencing a fate similar to mine. The many investigators and emergency crews, the pressure of having to produce results despite very few leads. The fear of failure, actual mistakes, a stream of new theories about my disappearance or my time in captivity. All of this was a mixture that has left a very bitter taste in its wake even today.

I myself have become a public person. Not because that is something that I have always wanted, but rather because the Kampusch case has never found a peaceful conclusion. Conspiracy theorists, journalists, actual or self-proclaimed investigators, politicians and members of the judicial system everybody is pursuing their own agenda, abusing me for purposes I have no control over, and whose underlying motives have often not become apparent until after the fact. Getting to the bottom of the case and acting in the interest of the victim were sometimes just a smokescreen.

I have been accused of having planned the kidnapping myself, of covering for possible accomplices, of lying, of wallowing in self-pity and of constantly making a profit off of a story that never could have happened the way I have repeatedly said it did. After all, a victim, who had undergone years of martyrdom, would never look like me.

I had had enough time to prepare myself for Day X, even if everything has actually turned out quite differently and the full force of it has completely overwhelmed me. I did not wait for a rescuer from the outside to save me, or hope for a miracle, but I rescued myself when I was ready to do so in my mind and when an opportunity arose. I maintained control and did not give myself over to my fate. During the eight and half years of my captivity I played the role that the kidnapper had reserved for me only in part. But I never accepted it as my role in life. I never gave up my inner identity, never allowed my will to be broken. If that had happened, I would probably not have survived all those years.