10 Years of Freedom Read online

  On the other hand I was so hungry for an education that I wanted to tackle the new material in order to absorb all this new information. In addition, I wasn’t used to concentrating on one subject over a longer period of time, to working in a very mentally structured way. I wanted to do much too much, and all of it at once, and most of all down to the last detail. I wanted to be free to contemplate everything in peace, and also to think outside the box from time to time, in order to recognize interconnections and to avoid just “working the program”. I did not want to consume education, I wanted to grasp it.

  The Vienna School Board thankfully made it possible for me to complete my compulsory schooling at a co-operative middle school. In the afternoon, I was given individual instruction by a team of teachers in various subjects. Due to my age and my particular situation, the idea of joining the other children in class was quickly discarded. The idea was not only to protect me but also the other students, whose everyday schooling was not to be disrupted. In the beginning I was a bit disappointed at this. I would’ve liked to have experienced what it’s like to be integrated into a normal school system. But looking back, it was probably the right decision, because after all my years of being alone, I am used to working at my own pace and learning on my own.

  I was happy that I had finally passed my exams. I had fewer problems with the material than I had feared. However, I proved to be an obstacle to myself at times, because I was very strict with myself. That is certainly a result of my captivity, where I was never able to do anything right, never praised, but only shown all the things I couldn’t do or did wrong.

  With my diploma in hand I wanted to tackle the next step, namely passing the “Matura”, the secondary school leaving exam in Austria. The fact that I already begun had come up in an interview. I would have preferred to keep it my little secret. As a result, this put more pressure on me, because people kept asking how far along I had come. I was happy that people were taking an interest, but at the same time their questions made me uncomfortable. I felt like a lazy student, trapped between my own perfectionism and an overly cautious approach. Only when I am sure that I have mastered something do I dare take the next step. I would rather look over my work once again before handing in a hastily scribbled essay or where I’m sure that I failed to completely follow all of the proper steps to get the right answer. This can be easily misinterpreted as insecurity or incompetence, but in fact it is simply a slow preparation process, a comprehensive approach in the hope of achieving a better result.

  To make matters worse, my preparations for the Matura came at a time where I was very much the focus of public scrutiny, because the “Kampusch case” was being reopened again. With the determined result being the fact that I had told the truth, that Priklopil had acted alone, and, and, and. Hardly had the established result reached the public domain, once again somebody immediately began doubting it; the machinery of the judicial system, committees, press reports … once again sprang into action.

  I had to appear in court on numerous occasions and was questioned on particular events again and again: whether the kidnapper had done this or that, whether I knew his mother or not, what the situation in the house and in the dungeon was like, why I had written this or another entry in my diary, or if I knew what I did on a particular date in year X. All of the statements were then compared to the police reports drawn up during my initial questioning. They were no deviations that could have provided all of those “seekers of the real truth” any ammunition. Nevertheless, the permanent feedback loop continued, and it dealt me a massive setback during that phase of my life. Because all of the old wounds were reopened, because I was forced to return to a time that I had found a different way of coping with in the meantime – also thanks to therapy. My captivity had moved somewhat farther into the distant past. And I was trying to get my new life under control. And yet I was forced again and again to revisit it. To allow that time back into my life, and more than was already the case. The past, or what we experience in life, will always be a part of us. Sometimes its presence will be foregrounded more, sometimes less, but most of the time without directly impacting our present. Over time and with the help of therapy I have learned to deal with memories and flashbacks so that they do not permanently weigh on me, hurt me or erect an insurmountable wall between me and the rest of my life.

  And now I had crashed against a wall that was constantly being rebuilt from the outside. I would never have opposed any further investigations if the focus were genuinely on new findings. I never even opposed this theatre of the absurd that was now being staged. I was available, provided statements, even when it was no longer about confirming facts or clarifying questions by a long shot. My past was the backdrop, or the chessboard on which many a figure advanced and retreated. My presence, my struggle to find normalcy was unimportant.

  It was in exactly this atmosphere that I was attempting to pass the Matura. And whenever I was repeatedly asked whether I already had my Matura in hand and was thinking about tackling university studies soon, I sometimes felt like a juggler attempting to juggle five balls in public for the first time. Everything went so smoothly at home, but now he can’t help but drop all the balls at once. And even if I knew that I had not really dropped all of the balls, for the audience or the reader it must have sounded like I had failed. Because I kept saying that I was still working on it.

  In fact I was paralyzed for a time due to all of the turbulence. All of the upset and stress caused me to fear taking the exam. In the meantime I have successfully passed the first portions of the exam, in art among other subjects. The rest will follow in time. I am grateful that I now have so many options open to me, that I can take a number of avenues to develop myself further. The journey is the most important thing for me. Life leads you to so many forks in the road, and I wanted to have the freedom to change my mind whenever I wanted about which path to take. If it’s to be university studies, great. If not, that’s fine too. I may be seen as too fickle or lacking in direction in our rather achievement-oriented society. But I see that a bit differently. Just recently I said to a friend that I sometimes wished for a life-sized third knitting needle, like the one you use when you set some of the stitches aside for later. Until you have figured out how to continue the pattern.

  5

  Stopped Short

  My Difficult Search for a Purpose

  It is perhaps unusual that someone like me can develop an entrepreneurial spirit so quickly, put her nose to the grindstone and want to make an impact. Many people simply didn’t understand, but that’s just the way I am. I thought I would jump into life with both feet. Someone else may have withdrawn to the safety of their family, cried a lot. But not everybody is the same, but every approach to working through your experiences in life should be seen as legitimate. Essentially, people should really be happy that I am now doing something worthwhile.

  However, it took me a while to come to this realization; all too often I allowed myself to be distracted from living my life by influences from the outside. Sometimes even those close to me were overwhelmed in sorting through my many ideas and pointing them in a direction that either made sense to them or was merely feasible. Once we had a heated discussion where I was constantly being told, this was not possible, because… Charity work yes, but only together with “the right institutions”; I was “taboo” for work in other areas. But that was not what I wanted. I was already being asked for my “expertise as a victim” on a regular basis, any time a case of abuse or an egregious crime was uncovered that was comparable to the one perpetrated against me. But comparisons are not possible, because every case is different, every victim is different, and every criminal is different. I do not want to assume that I can make a judgment as someone on the outside looking in.

  Moreover, I did not want to shore up my status as a victim, but I wanted to convey other messages if I was to be addressing the public anyway. Like having courage, being a role mode
l for others and that you can regain control over your life. That you can turn the suffering that you experienced into something positive. I would have liked to talk about the “strategies” that have helped me to survive. Here as well it is important to keep in mind that everyone is different, but perhaps some of my advice could have been helpful to someone. Contributions like these are very rarely asked for; most of the time the focus was on the suffering that I had experienced. Even when the topic was my future, it could not be separated from my past. It was like it ran on automatic, as if I had to compete with myself in my attempt to reinvent a “new” Natascha as an improvement on the “old” one.

  *

  The statement I heard most often in the discussions about my future was, “You can’t do that, because you’re too famous.” Almost as a joke I once said, great, then I can apply for a job in television, because fame is, after all, not an obstacle.

  For a moment everybody looked at each other astonished. Maybe that really was an option? Of course I had no experience in that field, other than having played news anchor as a child, or pretended to host television shows for adopting homeless pets, sitting in front of the mirror on the rattan chair, with my mother’s cats in my lap. In the dungeon I staged my own television shows, playing scenes from series, such as Alf, Married with Children or Star Trek. The science fiction shows fascinated me most of all. The heroes and heroines in the stories travelled to far-off galaxies and were able to use a holodeck to create virtual worlds, not just in their heads, but worlds that they could actually move around in. In my imagination I journeyed to innumerable worlds. And how I would’ve liked to possess the technical means to beam myself away from life-threatening situations.

  Later on I was a regular listener to the talk show Im Gespräch with Peter Huemer on the radio. It was fascinating for me to listen to him and his guests and follow their thought processes and articulated ideas. In fact, I actually found radio better than television, because nothing is there to distract you from what is being said. No colourful stage backdrop, no moderators playing to the cameras so that the TV audience does not change the channel. It is somehow honest and more focused on the actual subject matter.

  I really couldn‘t imagine myself on TV. It was a crazy idea, but at the same time an opportunity to turn the tables. I wasn’t the one to answer the questions, but rather to ask them. And I would ask questions that not only I found interesting, but hopefully my TV audience as well. I could interview interesting people within the framework of a new format, and perhaps also offer “normal” people, not only celebrities, with an unusual life story a platform.

  I am in essence somebody who is interested in other people. I have an extremely acute talent for observation, and I’m able to react quickly and adapt to a changing situation. I perfected all of these skills while in captivity. But would it be enough? There were a number of heavily qualified journalists who would be quite happy to moderate a talk show. Wjhy would anybody decide to let me have a go?

  I knew that it would be fun for me. In Barcelona, exactly one year after my escape, I had slipped into the role of questioner for the first time. The editorial team from the television show Thema had accompanied my sister and me for a few days on my first trip outside Austria after my captivity. They were looking for a different angle, not a studio interview with boilerplate questions like: “How are you doing now, one year later?” They were looking for something new, something that was to portray me from a more comprehensive angle. Not just in a serious one-on-one dialogue, but also carefree, strolling around the city or on the beach. I had willingly agreed to participate because it was my feeling that I owed it to the many people who had shared their honest empathy with me to give them an update on how far I had come.

  Most likely the Scottish Highlands or somewhere in Scandinavia would have been better for my sensitive skin, but I had a number of romantic ideas about what Barcelona was like. The very particular teardrop architectural style of Gaudí that reminded me of the sand structures that my schoolmates had built over the summer holidays, with photographs of them passed around for everybody to admire. Colourful sun lounges on the beach, sunshades, and in the background the blue sea. Up until then I had never been to the ocean. I knew a little bit about Spain from television. More like clichés of busy streets, where sooner or later somebody always dances a Flamenco, accompanied by someone singing. Impressive buildings reminiscent of glorious centuries gone by, and of course bullfighting. For me as a vegetarian and died in the wool animal activist that seemed to me to be rather dubious entertainment…

  In the airplane I poured over the city map and the tourist guide book. We had a very full itinerary (including an evening of Flamenco!), and I did not want to be just trotting along behind the tour guide, letting her words wash over me. I wanted to be prepared. When we got there, the city was very different than I had expected. It was boiling hot, deafeningly loud and a thick cloud of smog hung over the city, making it difficult to breathe. Our hotel was close to the pedestrian mall La Rambla, but turned out to be under construction. The lobby was lost in plastic sheeting, and torn open bags of cement lying on the ground. Workers were drilling and hammering, making it difficult to hear oneself even think. Then, once in the room belonging to the ORF television crew, they opened the door to the closet and a bunch of junk fell out. After discussion about what to do, we decided to change hotels.

  The new hotel was located at the old port, where only cruise ships now docked. Enormous luxury boats spitting out tourists from all over the world. Just like us, they poured through the narrow streets, fanned out to ride the double-decker buses taking them to see the most famous sights. I was only able to see Gaudí’s Sagrada Família church from the outside, because the wait to get in would have made too big a dent in our itinerary. After a tour of the city, we went up to the Park Güell, up innumerable steps and stairs, aligned by beautiful oleander bushes, palm trees, agave plants and other exotic vegetation. The noise of the city was reduced to a soft buzzing in the background. Colourful parrots squawked, and the blossoms attracted swarms of buzzing bees and other insects.

  Here as well we were not the only tourists with camera in hand, but the masses of people were more sparsely distributed across the entire area of the park measuring approximately 17 hectares than in the city down below. Only in front of Gaudí’s former residence, now housing a museum, had a long line formed. We strolled through the park. I was fascinated by the buildings with their conspicuous “icing topped” roofs and the large terrace surrounded by an oval wall. You can sit on the wall, whose entire surface is decorated with the smallest ceramic and crystal tiles. The mosaics form a collage depicting abstract and figurative elements, such as flowers, fish or stars. I could’ve wandered around there for hours absorbing all of the painstakingly crafted details. Even if it sounds cheesy: art sometimes moves me to tears. It doesn’t have to be made by human hands. The art that is hidden in nature sometimes exhibits a much more powerful, aesthetic attraction. At home I have an entire collection of small works of art from nature. Shells and stones that I get out from time to time, photograph, or touch. They have a lot to say about how the earth and life came about, and represent a link to the ages for me.

  The next day we drove just a few minutes out of the city heading for the beach. Amazingly, there were very few people there. The section where we were did not even have those endless rows of sun loungers that I had seen in the holiday photos of my elementary school friends. The water was wonderful, and after a few minutes I had forgotten that a camera was filming me. I could have floated there forever. A voice brought me back to the present saying, “The sun is going to go down soon. And we still want to do the interview!”

  Right at the beginning of the interview the focus was on the issue of trust. Whether I was able to be more open when interacting with others, and how I was able to deal with all of the impressions bombarding me from the outside world. I am unable, even today, to be fully
and completely trustful. And it took actually three years for me to be able to handle the visual, acoustic and olfactory stimuli. Whenever I was sitting in the car or on the train, I would get dizzy from watching the landscape whiz by. I was unable to sift through the images so quickly, and the same applied to voices in a group of people. I always heard and perceived everything all at once, and if I was unable to identify a sound, my heart would begin to hammer. At the beginning I asked myself why other people had no problems doing so. Why did they not suffer from sensory overload? How do they cope when everything is layered on top of everything else, from perfume to aftershave, not to mention the odour of food or automobile exhaust? Did they lack sensitivity, or were there sensors poorly adjusted? No, they had simply gotten used to it. It has only been over the years that I have learned that life is much easier when you can rid yourself of the kind of hyper sensitivity that I had developed in captivity.

  One year after my escape I was still having difficulty talking about the past and the present, which at the time were still rather interwoven, more than they are today. In the middle of the interview I asked Christoph Feurstein to turn off the camera, because I still had saltwater in my eyes. He understood my ulterior motive perfectly, and after a short break he suggested that we film each other for the interview. Just like when I take photographs, the small handheld video camera helped me to put a bit more distance between me and my situation and the subject matter of our interview once again.