Natasha Kampusch, A Slave To Writer

On 2 March 1998, at the age of 10, an Austrian girl named Natascha Maria Kampusch was abducted and held in a secret cellar by her kidnapper Wolfgang Přiklopil for more than eight years, until she escaped on 23 August 2006. This is the current picture of her as a grown-up 31-year-old woman taken in 2019.

During the eight years of her imprisonment, Kampusch was held in a small cellar underneath Přiklopil's garage. The entrance was concealed behind a cupboard. The cellar had only 5 m^2(54 sq ft) of space. It had a door made of concrete and was reinforced with steel. The room had no windows and was soundproof.

For the first six months of her captivity, Kampusch was not permitted to leave the chamber at any time, and for many years of her captivity, she was not allowed to leave the tiny space at night. Afterward, she spent increasing amounts of time upstairs in the rest of the house, but each night was sent back to the chamber to sleep, as well as while Přiklopil was at work. After her 18th birthday, she was allowed to leave the house with Přiklopil, but her kidnapper terrorized her to kill her if she made any noise.

Now the disturbing part about this whole abducting thing comes which implies that she might have been suffering through “Stockholm Syndrome". Přiklopil gave her books, so she taught herself. She did not feel that she had missed anything during her captivity, but she noted, "I spared myself many things, I did not start smoking or drinking and I did not hang out in bad company". She was sympathetic to her captor and this is what is generally called Stockholm Syndrome. Dietmar Ecker, Kampusch's media advisor, said that Přiklopil "would beat her so badly that she could hardly walk." Přiklopil would starve her to make her physically weak and unable to escape. Her body mass index had reached as low as 14.8 during imprisonment (normal BMI:18.5 to 24.5). Kampusch was also raped by Přiklopil. Now if someone did all that to you would you sympathize with that person? She at times did try to escape through but the attempts went in vain.

But finally, on 23 August 2006, the kidnapper walked away to take a call while she was cleaning and vacuuming. Kampusch left the vacuum cleaner running and ran away, unseen by Přiklopil, who completed the phone call without any sign of being disturbed or distracted. Kampusch ran for some 200 m through gardens and a street, jumping fences, and asking passers-by to call the police, but they paid her no attention. After about five minutes, she knocked on the window of a 71-year-old neighbor known as Inge T, saying, "I am Natascha Kampusch".

The neighbor called the police, They arrived pretty quickly. Later, Kampusch was taken to the police station in the town of Deutsch-Wagram.

Kampusch was recognized by a scar on her body and by her passport(the police found it in the room where she was held captive). Whereas the kidnapper, Přiklopil knew that the police were after him, so he murdered himself by jumping in front of a train near the Wien Nord station in Vienna.

Now another disturbing thing which suggests more to her suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, when she said "I feel more and more sorry for him—he's a poor soul". And according to police, she "cried inconsolably" when she was told that he was dead, and she lit a candle for him at the morgue.

This Stockholm Syndrome isn't recognized as a mental illness. But it's a term used to describe what the victim might be going through. So first, a person might feel utter terror, but as a survival mechanism, they might even start to emphasize with the person who had locked them up. This is weird but you won't believe 8% of the total people abducted show signs of Stockholm Syndrome as said by research by the FBI.