The neighbours say they noticed nothing, knew absolutely nothing. How could nobody have noticed this tragedy unfolding: A man kept his daughter locked up in his basement for 24 years, where he raped her on a regular basis, and who fathered seven children by his own flesh and blood.
Even his wife, the 68 year old Rosemarie, believed his tall and terrible tales: They brought up three of the children he had conceived with their daughter, after Fritzl claimed their daughter joined a cult and was unable to take care her kids. Austrian social services, a tragicomic cousin of the Keystone Cops, also swallowed his bizarre claims about their daughter, and let him adopt the children without any real investigation. No alarm bells, no questions, not even a peek at his ID card. Everything went at face value. Attitude soundproofed the screams coming from beneath Fritzl's home.
Like a lot of places in central Europe, Austria claims to have a sense of family and community. Safe, friendly, peaceful, open, civilised. So how could this monster go unnoticed for 24 years? How was this possible? Every report says that nobody saw or noticed anything unusual. Not even a previous conviction for attempted rape, not even a conviction for arson could point to the reality about this outrageously evil man: both had been deleted from his records. Official memory had conveniently lapsed, letting him off the hook.
So the jackal Josef remained a well thought of man. One neighbour said of course he was a good man, his garden was so neat. So was the basement, from the pictures we have all seen. Hell can be a very tidy place.
The same thing happened two years ago, when Natasha Kampusch escaped her decade of imprisonment by a paedophile, David Priklopil. He cheated justice by jumping in front of a train. Noone noticed him before, when he resembled a normal, civilised person. The neighbours didn’t know and didn’t bother to find out more about the unusual man who lived among them.
It’s not unusual for Austria to ignore its darkest truths. But they do it for the convenience and they always have. Austria lied about its enthusiastic collaboration with their countryman, Adolf Hitler, for decades after the war. They ignored their own sins, when they were anything but the Führer’s ‘first victims’, as they cynically characterised themselves.
They knew nothing, which everyone else on the planet knew was rubbish. This, like with the Fritzl and Kampusch cases, can only be said with brazen dishonesty or spectacular self delusion.
I don’t believe for a second that people didn’t notice anything. No-one can be possibly that naive. Official Austria is full of cowards, who abandoned the young of their country. It filters its way down through every level of society. The reflex is to ignore delude, deceive, explain away.
Further soul searching, if they bother to be brave, will reveal much, much more. Maybe redemption might be possible, but don't hold your breath.
