All language subtitles for Kamp English

[calm sounds]

[narrator] Strasshof,
a prosperous suburb of Vienna.

Natascha Kampusch was imprisoned here
for eight and a half years.

This is her story.

[Natascha] What I've learned
about people is this:

no one is infallible and anyone
can find themselves in a position

where they lose control
of their lives.

That's true for the kidnapper
and it's true for me.

From the moment I was kidnapped

I still had control of my thoughts,

but I couldn't do anything
about the world outside.

And the perpetrator had blown
a couple of fuses in his head

and he couldn't control his life either.

Or he wouldn't have done what he did.

[soft but dark music]

[hubbub of voices]

[Natascha] I'm an outcast.

I have a sign on my forehead
that says "crime victim."

I think everyone
has preconceptions about me.

Maybe when I'm older
people will forget what happened to me.

[soft music]

[news anchor] Austria One.

Since yesterday evening,
a 10-year-old girl has been missing

in Vienna's Donaustadt district.

Natascha wears glasses,
she's 1 meter 45 tall,

has light brown hair with a fringe,
and blue eyes.

She's been missing
for more than 34 hours.

All efforts to locate her
have been unsuccessful

and the police
are widening their search.

My mother always said:

"Never part after an argument because
something could happen to one of us,

and we'd never see each other again."

And then it happened.

She very rarely went to school alone.

But on that particular day she did.

I watched her from the window

as she left and walked
towards the shopping center.

Then she disappeared.

And that was it.

I was almost halfway to school
when I saw a man in the distance

standing in front of a white van.

[Natascha] As though
he were waiting for someone.

I wanted to cross the street.

But then I decided
to keep going straight.

When I came nearer,
he came towards me

grabbed me and

dragged me into his truck.

[somber music]

[Natascha] I tried to scream,
but no sound came out.

My voice box froze.
No sound.

The kidnapper said

if I didn't scream and didn't stand up
and did what he said

he wouldn't hurt me.

[dark sounds]

[Natascha] I didn't know
what was going to happen.

In that moment,
I thought it was the end.

I kind of knew the neighborhood
from that angle

'cause when I used to drive home
with my mother,

I'd see the treetops
and the telephone poles.

So I knew roughly
where we were headed.

[the handbrake is pulled
and the car door opened]

Then he drove the white truck
up to his garage

wrapped me in a blue blanket
and carried me into the house.

[dark sounds]

[Natascha] He carried me downstairs

and put me down for a moment.

I didn't know it then,
but he'd opened everything up.

Then he dragged me and carried me in.

[mysterious sounds]

Then he left me
in the cell on the floor

in the dark.

Natascha was always on time.

So when she was ten minutes late,
I thought to myself:

"Where is she?
I'm going to call the child-minder."

But no one answered.

I called half an hour later

and they told me
she'd never arrived.

At that moment I nearly fainted.

I knew something had happened.

[clock ticking]

It was as if the earth had
just opened up and swallowed her.

[ticking continues]

[menacing sound]

[Natascha] I just sat there
and counted to myself up to 21.

21 seconds.

And then to 60.

And on and on.

So I knew roughly
how long I had been there.

But at some point, I lost track.

[menacing sound]

[Natascha] That first day,

he brought me a mattress.

It was just five centimeters thick
and made of foam rubber.

I only had
the same blue blanket to cover me.

And I had to use my jacket as a pillow.

I wanted to keep my dress on,
day and night.

I didn't want to give up anything.

Or reveal anything about myself.

He'd taken away my school bag

and he'd burnt my shoes
in the first few days.

He said I wouldn't need them.

[narrator] A massive search
is launched by police

starting at the housing estate
where Natascha lives.
Concerned citizens
are calling in with information.

Soon, the police have evidence
of an abduction.

Austrian police are investigating
the disappearance

of 10-year-old Natascha Kampusch,

who was last seen
walking to school on March, 2nd.

She had
about a two-kilometer-walk to school,

starting from her home
on the Rennbahn estate.

Halfway along, there is
a roundabout on the Melangasse.

At approximately 7:20 a.m.
that Monday morning,

a girl standing at the roundabout says
she saw another girl in a red anorak

being forced into a white truck
parked on the right side of the road.

At first I had no way
to contact my kidnapper

if I needed something.

He just came every day.

Sometimes, when he didn't close
all the doors behind him

he could hear me knocking.

[metallic knocking]

[Natascha] And then he installed
an intercom system

so I could communicate with him.

I couldn't tell if it was day or night

because my inner clock
had gone haywire.

[narrator] Years later, the entrance
to Natascha's cell is discovered

in the garage
beneath a disguised trapdoor.

Down below, a heavy cupboard
and tires must be shoved aside.

They reveal a safe,

70 centimeters high,
screwed flush with the wall.

[dark sounds]

Behind that, the half-meter-thick wall
has been hollowed out.

To get in, you had to crawl
backwards through the hole.

And then close a 150-kilo
steel and concrete door behind you.

[haunting sounds]

Finally, you turned left
to open the double wooden doors
and step down
into a five square meter cell.

[Natascha] It probably took him
an hour or so to open the cell.

If he was working fast
or he hadn't locked everything

it was a bit less.

The effort was enormous.

Pushing everything aside
and opening everything up.

If anything had happened to him
or he had been taken ill

he'd never have got it open.

I would have been
sealed up like an Egyptian pharaoh,

buried alive,
dead and mummified.

[narrator] The statement by
the young witness

triggers an enormous investigation.

Police question 1520 owners
of white trucks

and 650 other people.

Including a man from Strasshof,
half an hour from the center of Vienna.

A township with one main street

no real center and 8000 inhabitants.

The man's name is Wolfgang Priklopil,

an unmarried
35-year-old communications technician

with no criminal record.

Priklopil lives in his mother's house
where two investigators question him.

His truck is full of rubble
from a building site.

He claims to have been at home
on the day of the crime,

but has no one to confirm his story.

Police have no probable cause
to search his house.

They take Polaroids of his truck,
write a report and file it.

I met Herr Priklopil at Siemens.

We did our vocational training there
in the early 1980s.

And we both worked there.

Later, I set up a company
renovating apartments

and I hired Herr Priklopil

because I knew
he was a reliable person.

[birds chirping]

[Natascha] Later on, he installed a timer.

The lights went on at a particular time,

then it went dark.

Like in a prison
where the lights go off at 8 p.m..

[Natascha] Every drop of water
meant more mold.

It was humid and wet in the little room.

And there were all kinds of insects there.

It smelled musty.

It was... very cold and damp.

Really disgusting.

And the ventilator was a kind of torture.

It was very loud.

[fan motor rattles and buzzes]

And when it rotated for a long time,
it became hot.

The blades began to melt

and then it didn't
just make that droning noise

but another annoying sound.

Tock, tock, tock, tock.

And tock, tock, tock again.

That went on until the fan was broken.

[dark sounds]

[Natascha] I began to get a sense
for when he was coming.

I would become very nervous.

And then I'd hear
the sounds of him unscrewing the safe.

And opening the concrete door.

Lots of pounding noises.

I'd sense it in advance somehow.

And I'd get palpitations.

My whole body

would go into knots,
my stomach would twist into knots.

I'd break out in a cold sweat
and I'd feel really queasy.

[door creaks]

I remember that Herr Priklopil
asked me once

before the kidnapping

when we were renovating a flat

how one could effectively install

sound insulation
to reduce the noise of a hammer drill.

I told him that cement
is a good insulation against voices.

But rock wool would be the best thing
to suppress the sound of a hammer drill.

I was horrified.

Horrified to discover
from the police investigations

that he used
exactly this information to build the cell.

[narrator] Special investigators
in Vienna receive a second tip-off

about Wolfgang Priklopil
eight days after his initial questioning.

The informant is a police dog handler
who lives in Strasshof.

He reports on a neighbor,
a reclusive man who owns a white truck.

He's a shy loner and protects his house
with electronic surveillance systems.

He may store weapons there

and he's thought to have
a sexual interest in children.

The officer has never learned
his name but provides a description.

The special task force immediately
orders local police in Strasshof

to check the man's address.

Then a fax arrives.
Wolfgang Priklopil isn't registered

as living at the house, his mother is.

Priklopil is only staying there.

His truck was checked on the 6th of April.

The tip-off is filed and forgotten.

Natascha Kampusch
has disappeared into thin air.

[ticking noise]

[solemn music]

[mother] Sometimes, when I was giving
her pictures a dust in the living room

I would hold them

to my chest or kiss them.
And I said:

"Don't give up.
You're a strong, strong child."

[Natascha] At first I didn't have to help him
with his work

because he was afraid
that if I came upstairs,

I might attack him with the tools.

But when he was sure
I was too scared of him to run away

he let me up.

But he made sure everything was locked
so I couldn't get out.

[dark sounds]

[Natascha] I didn't see any daylight
for a long, long time.

Then, when I finally came upstairs,
I still didn't see any.

Even though it was daytime,
because he closed the blinds.

He began integrating me
more and more into his household

until I became a kind of slave.

He always made sure I couldn't run away.

He threatened me
and kept everything locked.

[Natascha] It must have been
incredibly gratifying for him

to keep someone captive.

Someone who was there for him alone,

someone not even his mother
or grandmother knew about.

From the time
that Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped

I visited his house about twice a year.
But never noticed anything unusual.

Herr Priklopil was very concerned

with hygiene and cleanliness,
and he was extremely frugal.

On the one hand

he could afford a BMW.

But on the other

he let me go hungry.

That's cruel.

For the money...
he spent on a tankful of petrol

I could probably have survived
for one or two weeks or even longer.

Depending on how much
he gave me to eat.

Isn't that macabre?

[solemn music]

[mother] Sometimes, when I went with the
police to identify things,

I felt I was going to my own execution.

I'd have to go somewhere near the school
or near my flat

because they'd found a bag and wanted
to know if it belonged to Natascha.

Sometimes it was a shoe in a bush,
or a pair of panties in a car,

or a red jacket in a garage.

I was always so relieved when I saw that
none of these things were Natascha's.

[Natascha] If I had some skin cream

I rubbed some

into the wooden boards of my bed.

Because it was a bit like furniture polish.

I did a lot of dusting
and at the weekends -

because I'd got used
to doing it with my mother -,

when I had time,

when I was locked up,

I sorted things out, tidied everything up.

And I dusted.

[Natascha] He was
obsessed with cleaning.

And, of course, he was constantly wiping
off things that I might have touched.

I wasn't really supposed to touch anything

because, of course, fingerprints
leave ugly, greasy marks.

He would punish me if he found

a fingerprint anywhere.

Not only
because it was potentially dangerous

to find my fingerprints in his house.

But because he hated the look
of fingerprints on his household surfaces.

He would grab me by the wrist
and use the back of my hand

to wipe the prints off the refrigerator
or the door frame.

[dark sounds]

Right at the beginning, he made me
wear plastic bags on my head.

I stitched them together

and attached them with a rubber band.

It was horrible
because the color came off onto my skin

and it hurt because I had
to fix it with clips and rubber bands.

It would have been easier
just to tuck the hair under the plastic.

But he insisted on the clips and grips,
and they dug into my scalp and hurt.

It was tight.

Really unpleasant.

It made me frown all the time,
it was horrible.

Then he said if I shaved my head,
it wouldn't be so bad.

And it was torture.

So, when he trusted me enough,
I got a pair of scissors,

blunt, of course,

so I couldn't harm myself,
and I used them to cut my hair.

And...

And then he saw that.

He said he might as well cut it all off.

And he did.

[sad music]

[Natascha] There were times when the
torture and the humiliation were so bad

that I ran to the window

and shouted for the police.

Then he grabbed me really roughly
and choked me and hit me.

[dark sounds]

So, of course, sometimes
I would rather be in my cell

than have to leave it.

To do something I didn't want to.

Like help him work.

Something he did when he was sick,

not at first but later:

I had to come up
and I'd have to make him soup or tea.

And then he'd take me down again.

It was very

frustrating.

Because when he was sick,

he'd completely forget
that I have my needs, too,

that I might want to eat, too,
or need some daylight.

Or I want to wash myself.

[narrator] The pressure is building
on the police to get results.

They decide to tap the telephone
of Natascha's mother.

They hope the kidnapper
will try to get in touch.

A caller claims
to be holding Natascha captive.

But it's a hoax. One of many.

[Natascha] Going hungry was dreadful.

You almost feel like a drug addict.

And ask yourself:

Why am I hungry?
Why do I even feel hunger?

Why can't I manage without food?

He would show me
all the food there was

before he gave me anything to eat.

But then he'd only
cut off a tiny piece for me.

He decided exactly

how much I got to eat.

He never let me have what I wanted
or as much as I wanted.

Because, he said, I moved around
so little in the cell, I didn't need it.

[dark sounds]

[Natascha] He didn't want me to cry,
and each time I did,

he rubbed my tears into my face
with the back of his hand.

Or he took me by the throat
and dragged me,

choking me, to the bathroom,

where he held my face over the sink
so I couldn't cry anymore.

He wouldn't let me cry
because he was afraid

that the hydrochloric acid
in my tears would corrode his tiles.

[wind chime]

He always forced me
to look him straight in the eye
or look down at the ground
in a very submissive way.

Of course, I couldn't do that for long

because I won't be forced
to do anything against my will.

And, of course, he got back at me
because of that.

He kept telling me
I'm useless and worthless

and that I'll never
have a chance to escape.

[solemn sounds]

[Natascha] He just liked
having someone to dominate.

And the more I resisted

and answered back

the more satisfying it was for him
to put me down and dominate me.

To boost his own self-esteem.

He despised people.

He hated his neighbors
although he was nice to them.

He hated
his surroundings and society.

So he pretended to be a conformist.

Herr Priklopil was an only child

and after the death of his father,

he developed a very intense relationship
with his mother.

He placed high demands on women.

They had to be well groomed,

slender and blond.

Of course, these were
hard demands to fulfill.

[somber sounds]

[narrator] A private detective
with his own theories about the crime

mounts a campaign against the police's
handling of the investigation.

As a result,
120 files have to be transferred

to a new police commission.

By the end, there will be 167 files.

Natascha's body has supposedly
been buried in an allotment.

Nothing is found.

A year later the private detective
insists on another dig.

He suspects Natascha's mother.

The private detective cooked up a theory

that I was having an affair
with a businessman

and Natascha was in the way.

So we murdered her
and buried her in a pond he owned.

And the detective kept on at the police
about digging there

until they agreed.

[mother] And of course,
they found nothing.

[dark sounds]

[Natascha] You're locked up there
in the dark.

There's no electricity
and you're hungry.

And then, yes, you think to yourself,
"What's the point?

Why not put an end to all this?"

But then you come to the conclusion

that you mustn't give up.

Because the whole thing
is such a monstrous injustice.

You mustn't allow yourself to be defeated.

It was a kind of fighting spirit
that kept me alive.

[birds chirping]

He had lots of books

and he'd probably kept
all the books he had to read in school.

And then

I got them.

Later, he went out
and bought me non-fiction books.

Because I liked them.

And some dictionaries.

And books on philosophy.

[Natascha] I wanted to learn
and discover things in my own way.

So I asked him to set me tests

from maths books.

He was good at maths.

So I asked him to mark the tests for me.

And he did.

But unfortunately

it's the way he did it.

He found mistakes everywhere.

And because he had this controlling side
and he wanted to dominate me

he just crossed everything out
in red ink.

All the time, I felt he wanted
to be like some old-fashioned teacher.

"I'm in charge here."

And that's probably
how he was treated in his childhood.

I appreciated the fact that he was
always polite and very reliable.

On the other hand, he was rather shy

and a bit introverted.

He always tried not to offend anyone.

And I'm sure
he was a very obliging person,

neighbor, son, grandson.

[dark sounds]

[mother] Some time later,
the Vienna City Council offered their help.

They said something
I shall never forget

to this day.

I should buy a grave, a plot,

so I could have a place to go
to talk to Natascha.

I left the office, sat in my car
and burst into tears.

I couldn't even drive home.

My child is alive. She isn't dead.

Natascha was never dead for me.
No one ever showed me any proof.

There was no evidence to the contrary.

So I always believed Natasha was alive.
Right through the eight and a half years.

[dark sounds]
[fan motor rattles]

[Natascha] After a few years,
I could go out into the garden with him.

Sometimes at night
for five or ten minutes.

I was so happy I could touch
the trees and the hedge,

and I could feel the grass
and the wind on my skin.

Because, of course,
there's no wind in the house.

And it was so good.

I asked him if I could take
a twig from the hedge

back down to my cell.

So I could always think about it.
As a kind of memento.

Who takes something from the garden
into the house to remember it by?

[birds chirping]

[somber sounds]

[Natascha] For a while I kept a diary.

A kind of work book.

Where I wrote down
everything I did in the house.

Clearing up this,
cleaning that, siliconing.

I had to wash every tile by hand
before it could be laid.

I had to check every tile for flaws

because, of course, he wouldn't use
any tile that wasn't perfect.

I squeezed out sponges,

shoveled rubble,
carried heavy packets of tiles.

It was exhausting.

I was extremely weak and thin.

The first few years, I baked a cake
for Natascha on her birthday.

And chucked it away
after a couple of weeks.

But I always tried
to keep Natascha alive in my mind,

to include her wherever she was.

I tried to let her know somehow,
maybe by telepathy,

that I was thinking of her.

On my birthday,
I always remembered all the birthdays

I had celebrated with lots of other kids.

And with a special cake.

And how different it is now,
all alone in the cell.

[soft guitar tunes]

Well, of course...

At the beginning nothing.

The kidnapping, of course, but

all the humiliation and the other things
didn't come till later.

Then I really began to hate him.

For the way he was torturing me.

But maybe the secret,

the reason I survived all those years

was because I
forgave him for everything.

Almost as soon as it happened.

I think if I hadn't forgiven him

I would have been so full of hate

and negative feelings
that it would have become unbearable.

And it would have
destroyed me physically.

[dark sounds]

The kind of crime he committed

is usually the result
of some illness or injury.

And the person can't usually
do anything about an illness.

But this criminal had a conscience.

He still had a conscience.

He was aware on some level
of what he was doing.

You could see
that he was weak and unstable.

Because of some kind of illness or injury.

He had become so unstable

that he saw the kidnapping
as a solution to his problems.

It didn't matter
what the problems really were.

Or how he thought this could help.

But he did see it as a solution.

That actually made me feel...
pity and compassion for him.

Because many people are looking
for the meaning of their lives.

And many fail.

Some commit suicide.

Others take a wrong turning.

And he thought that if life
hadn't given him what he wanted,

he must take it by force.

He felt that he must become
like everything that had injured him

and made him ill.

[narrator] Seven years have passed
since Natascha Kampusch's kidnapping.

Seven years in which
she has grown into a young woman.

No one would recognize her now.

They're still looking for her,
or rather for a name in police files.

And that allows her kidnapper
to take her out into the city -

even to work for him
renovating an apartment.

Many people ask
why I didn't simply run away

while he was busy.

But he always made sure
I was carrying something heavy.

Or there was some other reason
I couldn't just run.

He was very good
at keeping up the pressure.

[Natascha] And we'd be out in his van,

and I wasn't allowed to speak to anyone.

He said he'd kill anyone I spoke to.

Or he'd kill me
and anyone who'd seen me.

It was hopeless.

[dark sounds]

Once we were on the way
to the hardware store.

We got caught in a traffic jam.

And there was
a police checkpoint up ahead of us.

There was
a rather stocky policeman there.

A friendly type.

But he didn't look too intelligent.

And... I tried to signal him with my eyes

that something was wrong.

But he didn't pick it up.

He probably thought I was mentally
disturbed or epileptic or something.

Anyway, he didn't notice
or ask any questions.

He just checked the car documents
and waved us through.

[dark sounds]

[Natascha] If someone jumps out of a car

and starts pounding
on the windows of other cars,

they don't look
especially normal or trustworthy.

The way I looked at the time,
so thin and pale

people might have thought
I was crazy or a drug addict.

I own an events hall,

and in July 2006,
Herr Priklopil called me

and told me
he wanted to borrow my trailer.

And one evening, we drove to this hall.

He had to pick up a trailer he owned.

Or... he owned with Holzapfel.

And then I saw Holzapfel.

But I didn't know
if he was his accomplice

or if he would believe me.

Because he was obviously his best friend.

When he came,
he was accompanied by a young girl.

I saw the girl as I opened
the door to the hall.

And he introduced her to me
as an acquaintance.

I shook her hand and said hello.

It was hardly a situation
where I could have said something.

So I didn't try to escape.

I just did what I was supposed to do,

shook his hand and said nothing,
the way he'd drummed it into me.

Then I had to leave
because I was under time pressure.

[rattling noise]

[Natascha] ♪ I got everything
that you want ♪

♪ Like a heart that's oh so true ♪

♪ Just call on me and I'll send it along ♪

♪ With love from me to you ♪

[Natascha] I could have
committed suicide.

Though it was much better to be dead
than locked up for good.

But that day, thank heavens,
I found the courage and just ran away.

[news anchor] Austria One.

At 1:04 p.m. today, a confused young girl

was discovered in a garden
in the town of Strasshof.

When police arrived, the young woman
claimed to be Natascha Kampusch.

He was talking on his cell phone.

And he'd told me to vacuum the van.

Which I was doing.

[Natascha] The noise was so loud that he
walked over to the swimming pool.

Maybe eleven meters away.

He'd left the garden gate open, unlocked.

So I grabbed the opportunity.

I left the vacuum cleaner on

and ran away.

Really, really fast.

As fast as my legs could carry me.

[news anchor]
When they searched the house,

police found a prison cell in the garage.

[news anchor 2] It has just been reported
that the alleged kidnapper

has committed suicide.

[Natascha] Then apparently

he drove to the train station
and lay down on the tracks.

Then the train ran over his head.

Then he was dead.

[narrator] She becomes
a media star overnight,

darling of the world's press.

The missed tip-off from the police
dog handler causes a political storm.

There's talk of cover-ups,
mistakes, half-truths.

Austria's scandal-racked government
resigns two years later.

The papers spread rumors
of sadomasochism,

child pornography rings
and possible accomplices.

[Natascha] Of course
they want to make headlines.

Child pornography and Natascha
Kampusch are linked all the time.

That's so painful.

No sadomasochists,
no pornography ring came by.

As far as I was concerned,
I only had contact with the kidnapper.

Did he do something like that?
I don't think so.

Because he didn't have the time.
But we'll never know.

We could only ask him
and he would probably deny everything.

But no one would believe him.

Because people like to hear stories about
sadomasochism and child porn rings.

That's the way it is.

People love horrible things
and they can't get enough of them.

They seek them out
and exaggerate them and embellish them,

make them even more terrible
and disgusting and revolting and vile.

[birds chirping]

[electrical humming]

The press asked me straight out

whether I was raped or sexually abused
and that kind of thing.

But in my eyes, the way
the media treated me after my escape

is a form of abuse, too.

And they should be punished for it.

[dark sounds]

[Natascha] In many people I trigger
some kind of unconscious aggression.

Maybe the whole crime and
what happened to me triggers aggression.

And I'm the only one they can still reach,

and so it all lands on me.

Right from the start I said,
"I'm not a victim."

Because I knew
that if I present myself as a victim

and show everyone
how terrible it was,

they'd never accept me
as a normal person again.

They'd say,
"You. You've debased yourself so far.

What do you think you're doing here?

Go back where you came from.
Go back down to your filthy swamp."

That's how most people are.
That's how they think.

I just want people to treat me normally.

I deserve a chance like anyone else.

I think people should be glad
I halfway survived all this.

[somber music becomes more intense]