Natascha Kampusch says she was kept ‘like a Nazi victim’ in 8-year dungeon hell – World News

It was one of those sickening crimes so harrowing that it shocked the whole world.

Fifteen years is about to pass since schoolgirl Natascha Kampusch escaped from her eight year kidnap hell of being held in a tiny dungeon.

Natascha was snatched as a ten-year-old and only got free eight years later when she 18.

Inevitably after such a horrific ordeal the flashbacks still regularly return.

Once a week she still sees her therapist.

In a TV interview ahead of the 15th anniversary later this month Natascha recalled new horrific details of the way Wolfgang Priklopil held her captive.

And his obsession with evil Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and how that influenced how he treated her.

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She said: “He admired Adolf Hitler and wanted me to be like the Nazi victims.

“He gave me little to eat, little clothes, humiliated me, made me do heavy work and shaved my head bald.”

It was every parent’s nightmare when Natascha was snatched off the street by evil paedophile Priklopil and held captive in a cellar in a small town near Vienna.

In an interview with Austrian TV – aired last night – Natascha, now 33, a successful author and jewellery designer spoke of how when she escaped she didn’t fit the image of a normal victim.

She said: “People probably thought that I was missing an eye or something, that I was just crying all day and under the influence of medication, many might have preferred that as an image of a victim.”

Natascha was snatched on 2nd March 1998 and held by Priklopil until she finally escaped on 23 August 2006.

As soon as he realised she had successfully fled – under the cover of the sound of a noisy vacuum cleaner – he was furious.

He committed suicide the same day by throwing himself in front of a train to avoid justice.

She went on to write a book called 3096 days, later turned into a successful film, marking her time in captivity.

Incredibly Natascha now actually owns the house where she was held.

Authorities gave it to her as financial compensation for her ordeal.

She doesn’t live there but visits every few weeks to check on the property, the garden and the high hedges.

She has said owning it had helped her to “have control” and gave her the “satisfaction of surviving”.

Recently she said: “I don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet. After all, I don’t want anyone to do anything funny with it.”

Over the years some people have asked why Natascha didn’t run away earlier when she appeared to have the occasional opportunity.

But in one of her books, she said: “One of the worst scenes during my captivity was when he shoved me, wearing only a pair of panties, half starved, covered in bruises and with my head completely shorn, in front of the front door and said, ‘Come on now, run. Let’s see how far you get.’

“I was so humiliated and filled with shame that I couldn’t take a single step.

“He tore me away from the door, saying, ‘So you see. The world out there doesn’t want you anyway. Your place is here and only here.’”

Natascha learnt English by listening to pop music on a radio in the cellar.

In the following years she has become an activist and has tried to help families in similar situations including the parents of Madeleine McCann.

She told Gerry and Kate to “never give up” on finding their daughter and “please stay strong and never give up yourself. I hope that Madeleine appears.”

In previous interviews she said of her captor, she said: “I think he was a lonely person – he was like a person without friends and without any love and perspectives.”

Natascha said he gave her a “frosty feeling, like ice”, adding: “He tried to shut my mouth with his hands and he hit me. I was never free.

“He always had me always under control.”

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She said she had days of doubt during her imprisonment, but remained strong because she had “plans for my life – and I didn’t want to give up these plans”.

But she admitted struggling when thinking about her family, because she knew her mum and dad did not know where she was.

“I was at the beginning, at the very first day, crying because of my parents, because they didn’t know what had happened to me.

“It was so hard. During the whole eight-and-a-half years, [I had] the same emotion. I had this kind of feeling that it’s necessary to survive and go back to my family and my normal life and identity.”

Recently she gave another interview on comparing the covid-19 pandemic with her own sudden kidnapping.

She said: “I am well acquainted with this situation.

“The sudden loss of freedom, the loneliness, the powerlessness, when life is completely different from one moment to the next and thoughts are circling.”

She has often been criticised “probably because I am not a typical victim, but because I am courageous and have my own opinion. People don’t want that so much.

“My everyday life is very influenced by constantly being recognised, being emotionalised, bullied or flirted with in an unpleasant way.”

Now Natascha is determined to enjoy life as much as she can.

Most weeks she goes horse riding four times and sews and designs clothes She said: “I never had nice clothes in captivity.”

She only had the dress she wore on the day she was abducted – and soon that became too small for her.

“Then I separated the top from the skirt and always wore it for Christmas.

There, despite everything, I wanted to be nicely dressed.”

When asked if she was happy now Natascha replied: “I think so.”