houses of horror

When you buy someone else’s house you have no idea what horror took place within its walls that never made the headlines, and while Amana can understand why Josef and Rosemarie Fritzl’s neighbors are now petitioning for his house of horror in Amstetten, Austria, to be razed to the ground – in the same manner as was Fred and Rosemary West’s horror house in Gloucester, England – she believes that the stink of the crimes committed in these houses cannot be so easily eradicated.

"The stink will continue to permeate the entire town for a long time to come," says Amana, "because it says as much about the neighbors as is does about the monsters who carried out their abominable crimes right under their noses."

"The Josef Fritzl horror story has raised a lot of questions about neighbors, particularly the ‘mind your own business’ mentality of the Austrians – which I believe to be true of most western societies," says Amana, "but I also believe that despite being imprisoned behind eight doors, deep in a dungeon under the Fritzl’s apartment complex, screaming her guts out hoping someone might hear her, Elisabeth may have had a way out by using the plumbing her father had installed for her providing, of course, that a neighbor recognized a distress signal and was willing to do something about it."

“Anyone who’s ever lived in an apartment knows that noise travels loudly through plumbing, and by banging the pipes or shouting through the toilet bowl could she have alerted one of the tenants?” asks Amana. “I ask this because anyone could become trapped in an apartment, not just a cellar, and because we rely on our neighbors to help in emergencies – not to spy on us – it’s something we all need to know.”

“It’s possible Elisabeth tried this – one of the tenants did hear noises, but was told by Fritzl it was a problem with the boiler,” says Amana, “so what was really needed was an alert tenant, not a dense one, and obviously a knowledge of Morse Code, by both Elisabeth and the tenants, would have helped – but who knows how to tap out a simple SOS these days? Isn’t it something we should be teaching our kids and make sure every immigrant knows?”

“Could Elisabeth have flushed a message down the toilet?” adds Amana. “Are sewerage workers trained to watch out for this sort of thing? Probably not.”

“Could Elisabeth have kept the taps on full blast, 24/7, to deny the upstairs tenants water pressure and possibly to alert the water authorities of excess water use and possibly an underground leak?” asks Amana. “This ploy would have worked well during the period Fritzl was overseas. Rosemarie, or her son, would have had to call a plumber and he would have figured out that the problem came from the basement and, following the pipes, would have become aware that someone was down there using the water.”

“That a plumber did visit the cellar on a least one occasion, it’s possible that Elisabeth did try to attract attention by blocking the toilet deliberately or doing something else,” says Amana. “That plumber has not come forward, so we may never know what he saw and what excuse Fritzl gave him.”

“Did anyone see the plumber leave?” asks Amana. “Perhaps he was murdered, chopped up and chucked in the incinerator – which was the fate of one of Elisabeth’s babies.”

“That everyone in Amstetten except, appparently, his family knew that Fritzl was raping his 11-year old daughter (but said nothing) and a tenant saw him take a wheelbarrow of food into the cellar shortly after Elisabeth disappeared (but didn’t put two and two together) – and unauthorized extensions to the cellar were being made under everyone’s noses without anyone, especially the wife, Rosemarie, querying why Fritzl needed extra cellar space – makes me believe that perhaps there could be something odd about the people in Amstetten that may not necessarily apply to all western societies,” says Amana. “Perhaps the Amstetten authorities were also guilty of doing nothing, as well as seeing and saying nothing, and that’s why nobody bothered to report what they knew. Nothing would have been done about it.”

“When Fritzl started expanding his subterranean domain to house his expanding cellar family, the earthworks were done without planning permission,” says Amana, “and because I’m pretty sure the planning regulations are as strict in Austria as they are elsewhere, I find it difficult to understand why Fritzl wasn’t nabbed on this fact alone – like the ganger Al Capone was finally nabbed by the taxman rather than the cops.”

“If nobody heard the digging noises then surely they must have noticed the tons of earth that must have been excavated and brought up for disposal?”

“Surely he did not follow the example of POWs who stored the earth in their trouser legs and spread it around as they walked?

“Tenants were not allowed in the garden area, but their windows overlooked the garden and they must have seen not only wheelbarrows of food going into the cellar but wheelbarrows of earth coming out,” says Amana, “and Rosemarie, for sure, must have seen the mounds of excavated earth, washed his dirty clothes and seen his sweaty body.”

“Didn’t she wonder why he was expanding the cellar space, especially as it was not used by tenants and she had no use for extra storage? Did she not ask herself what the hell was he doing down there, what did he need the extra space for and why was he risking doing earthworks under the house without permission when he could be heavily fined for doing so?”

“As this guy already had two convictions – for rape and arson – you’d think she would be terrified of him getting into trouble again and would have kept a close watch on him.”

“Rosemarie says that she was not allowed into the cellar – nobody was – and yet a tenant saw her helping Fritzl with wheelbarrow loads of food, and one of her sons was seen using the cellar, too,” says Amana, “so it may be a family crime rather than just Fritzl’s.”

“Either that, or the whole town including the rest of the Fritzl family was way below the average IQ,” says Amana. “How desperately sad for Elisabeth Fritzl that her monstrous father was the only intelligent person in town.”

“I’m as guilty as the next person as far as keeping to myself is concerned – the prospect of having a busybody as a neighbor, spying on everything I do, is as bad as having a family like the Fritzls living next door,” sighs Amana, “but there’s no way I’d do nothing to help an 11-year old girl escape a rapist father or ignore a series of strange events – even if it meant a risk to me – and I’d like to think my neighbors would be similarly inclined.”

“I guess we never know about these things, though, until we’re tested.”

Check out these other stories about the Fritzl family:

Elisabeth Fritzl’s Amazing Survival

Rosemarie Fritzl Wasn’t a Fat Housefrau

locked up living fritzl dolls

Austria’s Aryan Heritage

Elisabeth Fritzl Locked Up For Smoking

Secrets of Elisabeth Fritzl’s Age

Secrets of Josef Fritzl's Age

Rosemarie Fritzl a Protective Crab?

Patrice’s sunsign is Cancer, and because she was born in 1940 around the same time as Rosemarie Fritzl and experienced the same sort of marriage – to a dominating, sex addicted man of the same age, having the same number of children and experiencing the empty nest in the same year, 1984, that Elisabeth was incarcerated in the Amstetten cellar – she wonders whether Rosemarie is also a protective crab Cancerian, and that being the case why did she stay with him when everyone knew, except her it appears, that 11-year Elisabeth was being raped at home?

“Was she more interested in her wealthy comfort and keeping up appearances than she was in the welfare of her children?” asks Patrice. “Did she know, did she care and who was she protecting – herself or Fritzl?”

“My star sign is Cancer, I loved being a housewife and mother, my home was my life, and I never imagined myself as being capable of leaving my protective shell and living an independent life,” says Patrice, but I was acting in my own self interest -- primal survival instinct I suppose -- and that motivated me to do what I did.”

“Was I brave to leave him? No, I was scared to death.”

“What differentiated me from Rosemarie in 1984 was not bravery or intelligence but a home situation that was more horrible that hers. If Fritzl were forcing himself on her every night (rather than poor Elisabeth in the cellar) -- or bashing her up -- I bet Rosemarie would have left in flash.”

“Having a domineering death-threatening husband is thus no excuse for staying with him and I refuse to exonerate Rosemarie on that basis when, after 1984, she had no children at home to consider and half of her life yet to live,” says Patrice. “I was similarly cowed by my ex but I was not numbed, as she was, by a life of comfortable wealth and the ability to sleep soundly at night, unmolested. I truly felt that death would be preferable to domination and if I feel sorry for Rosemarie at all, it is because she missed her chance to take a new direction and change everyone's future for the better."

"Even if Fritzl managed to gain sole title to the Amstetten property after the divorce, and continued to keep Elisabeth a prisoner rather than finding a new wife, there is no way he could have coped as a single man, cooking, cleaning and washing for himself, at the same time as dealing with an increasing number of cellar children and maintaining his impeccable cover with neighbors and tenants."

Read more by Patrice on this issue:

locked up living fritzl dolls

hunks, trunks and living dolls

Josef Fritzl and Sex Addiction

the bearded man in the sky

empty nest divorce time

what’s civilized about western men?

fritzl wives

rosemarie fritzl's bad decision

Was Rosemarie Fritzl Blameless?

the cliff richard generation

dependence enables evil

are sex addicts evolutionary dinosaurs?

incest horror

the bearded man in the sky

For Patrice, there is no god and with the breaking of the horrific Josef Fritzl story in a country that is proudly catholic, having once been the centre of the Holy Roman Empire, she cannot believe that anyone there, or anywhere, can remain a believer in the bearded old man in the sky.

“There is no god, but if Elisabeth and her children believe that there is a bearded man up there in the sky," says Patrice, “then I hope he looks down upon them more favorably than he has in the past and does not leave them feeling guilty or responsible in any way for what happened to them and frees them from a mother/grandmother whose emotional influence over them will be as crippling, in its own way, as that of their father/grandfather.”

"I sometimes wonder whether the benign bearded old man in the sky was invented to overcome the evil mother stereotype in real life,” says Patrice, “because that stereotype surely fits Rosemarie Fritzl.”

“If Rosemarie Fritzl hated or feared her husband and was merely forced by her circumstances (seven babies and no single parent benefits in 1967) to stick with him -- then she would have left him immediately the children grew up, like I did, wouldn't she?" asks Patrice. “So, do we assume that she loved him passionately and would stay with him no matter what -- in which case are we likely to hear soon that she will defend him as a dutiful, loving wife to the end of his days, make excuses for him, and maintain a vigil outside the prison in which he is incarcerated?”

"Alternatively, love him or hate him, was she completely downtrodden by patriarchal Austrian society dominated by the bearded man in the sky to expect anything better for herself and children?” asks Patrice. “Perhaps in 1967, but surely not after 1984 (unless, of course, what the papers are saying about incest, wife-domination and sex slaves in dungeons is true of most Austrian men, in which case the world should demand right now that all cellars in Austria be regularly inspected)."

"Or, is she mentally defective -- as thick as a plank -- incapable of sweeping a floor without instruction from a man, bearded or not?”

“In deep respect for Elisabeth Fritzl and her children, whose survival of such an ordeal may have been possible by belief in a bearded man in the sky, I hope that he gives her more strength than ever to cope with the difficult times ahead coming to terms with the betrayals and depravities of her family and allows her – as her family didn’t – to break ties and start a new independent life as far away from them as possible.”

Elisabeth Fritzl’s Amazing Survival

The story of Elizabeth Fritzl’s survival after spending 24 years entombed in a cellar enduring abominable treatment from her father is one that will go down in history and remain strong in the minds of everyone who breathed fresh air, felt the sun on their face and the wind in their hair during those years that she was denied daylight. It’s a story that surpasses all of the other horror stories happening around the globe and, as Dagna points out, it particularly strikes a raw nerve in claustrophobics and women because it addresses primal fears.

“I am claustrophobic – I use an elevator because there’s no other way to get into my workplace, and I suffer cold sweats every time I do – but I have always avoided flying and other claustrophobic situations,” confesses Dagna. “The thought of being entombed underground is too horrible to contemplate; I would literally die of fright. I think this is true of most people, though, not just claustrophobics, and I cannot imagine what would have been worse for Elisabeth – being subjected to her father’s vile attentions or her situation.”

“Many people, women especially, claim that they would have committed suicide under these circumstances,” says Dagna, “but the human spirit, the intuitive survival mechanism is so strong that we do not really know what we are capable of enduring until we are tested.”

“I think I can speak for all women concerning the fear of rape – yet being raped by your father and impregnated by him is so unspeakable that we don’t want to address our feelings about it,” sighs Dagna. “We are advised in a rape situation not to resist, and although that is apparently what Elisabeth did I am not so sure I could be passive. I think my natural instinct would be to fight back, to murder the rapist even – but then, I have never been in that situation and I don’t know.”

“It must have been terrible for her in the early years – being totally alone in the cellar – and not much better when the children came along because then she had to worry on their behalf, too, about emergencies such as an electricity black-out, a flood, a fire or the demise of her father – or herself.”

“Did her father, Josef Fritzl, really cover all bases, or was he prepared in some situations to leave his cellar family to their fate?”

“As an electrical engineer, it’s likely that Fritzl had an emergency generator set up to operate in the event of a black-out, but what about a flood or a fire? How far is Amstetten from a river? Could the town be flooded in a storm? Had an upstairs bathroom flooded, water seeping into the cellar would have drowned the cellar family, too. Did Fritzl have an emergency pump set up to operate in this event, too?”

“The worst type of emergency would have been a fire,” says Dagna. “Imagine poor Elisabeth having to prepare meals, on an electric or gas stove, terrified that something may catch fire one day, sucking up the limited oxygen in the dungeon. Did Fritzl have an emergency sprinkler system for this emergency, or was the whole place fireproofed?”

“He maintains that the door was designed to open automatically if something happened to him – but since he was regularly away for months at a time enjoying holidays abroad one wonders what time period he set for the door to open and whether the cellar family had enough food to cover that time period? And what if something had happened to Elisabeth while he was away?”

“If the door opened automatically after, say, three months, then if Elisabeth had died and the children were too young to fend for themselves or know how to escape then they, too, would perish. Imagine being in a cellar with your dead mother’s body rotting away, polluting the sparse air.”

“All of these fears would have gone through her mind,” says Dagna, “and yet she persevered.”

“It’s really amazing that none of the cellar children – apart from the unfortunate twin who died shortly after birth – had been seriously ill before Kerstin’s recent malaise, but maybe they had and somehow pulled through with Elisabeth’s ministrations.”

“That Fritzl left Elisabeth to give birth on her own, time and time again – and disposed of the dead baby in the incinerator - shows that he had no contingency plan for illness or death in his cellar family, and that if Elisabeth herself had become seriously ill he was probably likely to let her – and the children – die. After all, they were already entombed and nobody would miss them.”

“In his statement to police Fritzl said that he intended to free the cellar family shortly, and had a letter written by Elisabeth as proof of his intentions – that they’d arrive at his doorstep one day, saying they had left the sect and wanted to come home – but does this ring true or was it a bluff to keep Elisabeth quiet, complacent and hopeful in her dungeon?”

“Having succeeded in fooling everyone about the circumstances of the three cellar children raised upstairs by Rosemarie, there is no way he could get away with Elisabeth and the remaining three cellar children suddenly appearing in the ghostly and ghastly state they were in.”

“Even if they were sworn to keep their terrible secret – and there’s no way a 5 year old boy can keep his mouth shut, he was bound to blurt out ‘daddy’ one day – the authorities would have been alerted by their terrible mental and physical condition to ask questions. Where was the sect? Who was the father? Who brought you here to the house? Why is the eldest boy stooped? Why can’t you bear sunlight? Were you kept as prisoners in a cellar with a low ceiling? And so on, and so on until the truth came out.”

“Unless Joseph Fritzl had his own bolt-hole planned, in Thailand or South America, and arranged their release at the same time as his departure from Austria for good, odds are that he had no intention of freeing them and their death would occur at the same time as his, only they’d die without a funeral and without mourners for nobody knew they existed.”

“That Fritzl would agree to Elisabeth’s demand to take the sick daughter Kerstin to hospital is amazing and her control of the situation was a masterstroke of calculation. She dutifully carried Kerstin to Fritzl’s car and allowed him to lock her back in the cellar after breathing her first taste of fresh air and seeing the outside world for 24 years.”

“That she didn’t scream to alert attention or run for her life – as much as her legs were capable of carrying her – attests to what a remarkable woman and mother she is (her two other children were still in the dungeon and their lives depended upon her coming back.)”

“When the hospital saw Kerstin’s ghostly and ghastly state Fritzl explained that the mother was in a sect and had dumped her, like she had three former children, but that didn’t tally with the careful, loving note Elisabeth had written for the doctors about the treatment she had previously given Kerstin.”

“Elisabeth was probably banking upon the doctors being smart enough to realize that something was amiss, and that is exactly what happened. An appeal was made on television for the mother to come forward, and again Elisabeth outsmarted her father by convincing him that she should at least make an appearance and then return to the dungeon.”

“Trusting Elisabeth and believing with incredible hubris that the doctors would be satisfied after that, Josef was thwarted when the doctors got the truth out of the equally ghostly and ghastly Elisabeth and he was held and forced to lead authorities to the dungeon to release the other two children.”

“It turns out now that Kerstin isn’t as dangerously ill as it first appeared she was – and perhaps pretending that the girl was dying was part of Elisabeth’s ploy, too.”

“To risk 24 years of subterfuge by agreeing to take Kerstin to hospital defies belief,” says Dagna. “He was either totally convinced that he could get away with it – with Elisabeth’s compliance no doubt on the threat of murdering the remaining children – or he was too old to care any more.”

“Whether Elisabeth finally outsmarted him or he was too old to care any more is something we may never know, but we do know that Elisabeth had hope of freedom and this hope raised her spirit sufficiently to survive.”

“When you consider the incredible mental and physical disabilities that Elisabeth must now bear as a result of prolonged deprivation you look at your own disabilities and feel downright grateful,” adds Dagna. “As a tribute to her, in recognition of her amazing bravery, I am planning to take my first trip on a plane soon and when I do I will take a deep breath and think of her.”

See also:

Secrets of Elisabeth Fritzl’s Age

Secrets of Josef Fritzl's Age

Elisabeth Fritzl’s Neighbors

locked up living fritzl dolls

Rosemarie Fritzl Wasn’t a Fat Housefrau

Austria’s Aryan Heritage

Elisabeth Fritzl Locked Up For Smoking

rosemarie fritzl, a bad decision

Patrice's marriage was similar to Rosemarie Fritzl's in many ways and yet she managed -- with incredible difficulties -- to divorce her sex-addicted husband and build a new life for herself when her daughters grew up and left home in 1984. So why was Rosemarie unable to do the same?

“Rosemarie Fritzl's decision to stay with her husband was a very bad one for the whole family, including Fritzl whom she enabled,” says Patrice. “Had this horror taken place in the 1950s - when men were masterful hunks and women were submissive dolls – it might not even have reached the headlines, but that it all started in 1984, after decades of feminism empowering women to get out of marriages with domineering men, makes Rosemarie look very bad indeed.”

"For 24 years now, since 1984, I have lived an independent life, and I feel so strongly about the Fritzl case because my freedom started in the same year that Elisabeth lost hers,” explains Patrice. “Had I remained married, I dread to think what my life would be like now and how many people would be damaged as a result of my enabling that man to be what he was.”

“Gaining my freedom wasn't easy -- no flight from a horrible situation is," says Patrice. "I was totally alone, I had no support network and I had no work experience outside of housework. I went through years of harassment and death threats from my ex, disapproval and manipulation from our adult children, ostracism from family and friends and abject misery living in a cockroach infested rented room and working as a kitchen slave before my luck changed.”

“At times, yes, I wondered whether I had made the right decision because it was so hard on me,” says Patrice, “but when I consider the alternative – ending up with a scandal like the Fritzls face, and an old age of shame, I am so proud of myself for taking the direction I did.”

Read more by Patrice on this issue:

locked up living fritzl dolls

hunks, trunks and living dolls

Josef Fritzl and Sex Addiction

the bearded man in the sky

empty nest divorce time

Rosemarie Fritzl a Protective Crab?

what’s civilized about western men?

fritzl wives

Was Rosemarie Fritzl Blameless?

the cliff richard generation

dependence enables evil

are sex addicts evolutionary dinosaurs?

incest horror