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Jailer beat me and shaved my head, Kampusch reveals

By Thomas Hochwarter

Kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch has told of how her hygiene-obsessed jailer would beat her if she left marks on objects when he let her out of the special dungeon he held her in for eight years.

Revealing horrendous details of her eight-year imprisonment in an upcoming TV documentary, the 21-year-old has also told of how sick Wolfgang Priklopil - who killed himself when Kampusch finally escaped from his home just outside Vienna - was obsessed with hygiene, even in her cellar prison, and that he had even shaved her hair off in the end "for hygiene reasons".

Kampusch, who was snatched off the street at the age of ten, explained how she was forced to tie up her hair in her 2.7-metre long and 1.8-metre wide cellar prison.

She said pervert Priklopil then decided to shave her hair and told her not to cry as he did not want her tears to leave "salty stains" anywhere. But when the terrified girl failed to control her tears he held her head underwater in a sink as punishment.

"I preferred to be down in the cellar room," she said explaining she was hit when she left fingerprints on glass plates and other objects when her kidnapper allowed her to spend a few hours a day in rooms above ground with him.

And she says she still shivers when she thinks of her eight years in captivity.

Speaking to press in Germany as she promoted the 45-minute documentary "Natascha Kampusch - 3.096 Tage Gefangenschaft" (Natascha Kampusch � 3,096 Days in Captivity) to be screened on 25 January by German station ARD, Kampusch explained she felt "ostracised for life" by what had happened to her.

"I feel like I have a stamp on my forehead saying: �I am a victim of violence.�"

Kampusch also told of how it took loner Priklopil an hour to go through the various safety precautions he had laid leading to the underground jail he kept her in and then open its iron door.

Asked whether she ever wondered what would have happened if Priklopil had ever died while she was in the dungeon, Kampusch said: "I was conserved like a live Egyptian pharaoh."

Kampusch also revealed Priklopil had burned her shoes after locking her away in 1998, saying: "You won�t need these anymore."

Asked why the documentary focused only on the years in captivity, writer Peter Reichard revealed there would be a sequel. Reichard, a veteran German TV producer, said it was the "most horrible moment in my life" when he entered the cellar dungeon under Wolfgang Priklopil�s house in Strasshof an der Nordbahn just outside Vienna.

Kampusch bought the house at Heinestra�e 60 shortly after her escape three and a half years ago "to ensure it does not fall into the wrong hands". She said she was planning to fill in the underground prison, but added: "I�m still thinking about what to do with the house."

Austrian Times

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