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Sunday, March 29, 2009

I am Not a Monster


Beautiful Salzburg, Austria



Josef Fritzl does not like being described as a Monster. You will recall that he is the “gentleman” from Austria who took his own daughter hostage and enslaved her as his sex object. He held her against her will for 24 long years in a downstairs sealed apartment where he fathered seven children with her.

One of the children needed urgent medical care at an early age, however he was adamant that there would be no medical intervention, so the child died. For this he was charged with murder.

Because of the nature of the offences allegedly committed he was further charged with numerous acts of rape, too numerous to count, and with incest.

Perhaps Mr. Fritzl is correct, the word monster does seem tame under the circumstances.

In my opinion, for any father to have sexual relations with his own child is to qualify him as a monster of the highest degree. I cannot even imagine what goes through a person’s mind to make him think that would be justified. For any female to experience being treated with such disdain and disrespect is not something that any man can imagine, even those who commit the offence. The exception to this is when it’s a man on the receiving end from another man.

When the aggressor is her own father, the one person upon whom she is supposed to be able to count on for protection, she surely must believe that this world is putrid beyond belief.

There are some other elements to this story that are even more important. I wonder what was in the mind of Mrs. Fritzl. Oh yes! There is a Mrs. Fritzl. As widely reported, her name is Rosemarie and she is approximately 69 years of age. She lived in the upstairs part of the very same house under which her daughter was being held for all those years. She was told by her husband that their daughter had run away from home and joined a cult. Then he showed up with three of his children/grandchildren for her to care for, explaining that they were her daughter’s for whom the daughter could not care for.

In researching this story, incredibly other media have printed the names of all the players. I disapprove of that. I think that it is insensitive to the burden that the children/grandchildren already have to bear, so I will refrain from doing so.

Many people absolutely refuse to believe that the wife had no idea of what was going on. However, it should be borne in mind that he did not intend that she know. The bunker itself was actually under the backyard, rather directly below the house, so the sounds of crying children were adequately muffled.

His daughter was 19 when he lured her into what was to become her home for the next 24 years. She is now 42 and very deeply troubled. I try to imagine what his rape of her was like that first time, and my mind shuts down. I just can’t go there. And all those subsequent times when he entered the bunker for sex. I can hear her pleading “Daddy, please, not again!”

The ages of the children are as follows: Girl, 19, boy, 18, girl, 16, girl, 14, boy, 12, boy, 5. Three of the children had never seen daylight since they were born.

There are two things that disturbs me about the children: How will they cope, especially since everybody in Austria knows who they are, and they all bear this man’s evil seed. I suppose that they could be given social counselling and transferred to another country and given new identities, but there is still the matter of the evil seed that they carry, and they will all know about how they came into the world. How does one rise above such a horrific beginning?

Fritzl was once an honourable man in the eyes of those who knew him, but now that the truth is out he felt the need to hide his face. I imagine that one of the worst punishments for anyone to suffer is to lose their honour. Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.

So, Herr Fritzl, you may not think you’re a monster but in the eyes of the world you are the ultimate monster. As for me, all I know is that you thoroughly disgust me. Your crimes are against humankind because they are crimes against your own family. I have no idea as to what would be the proper punishment for you within the law. I note that there is a suggestion that you be jailed for the rest of your miserable life, and that you be given treatment. This outraged me until I remembered that treatment can take many forms.

On its face Austria is a place of breathtaking beauty and culture. Everything seems to be in place, and it seems to work like the finest clock. However, Austria needs to look inwards and ask itself whether it is reasonable that it gave to the world, apart from Josef Fritzl, Wolfgang Priklopil who abducted Natascha Kampusch whom he held for eight years, but not always underground or even indoors; and it also gave us as its president Kurt Waldheim, a “former” nazi. He also served for five years as UN Secretary-General. (I can hear your breath stop.)

The worst thing to date that Austria has given to the world is one of its sons, Adolf Hitler. For this it should forever be in an apologetic state to all of humankind. Were it not for the fact that it also gave us Arnold Schwarzenegger we might have a totally dismal view of this country.

Copyright © 2009 Eugene Carmichael