With Fritzl in jail, life can start for his children

IN THE days after Elisabeth Fritzl was released from her captive hell, she developed an addiction to washing, showering up to 10 times a day as she tried to scrub herself clean of her father's touch and stench.

Now, almost one year on, she can contemplate a world finally free of her father. With Josef Fritzl expected to be sentenced today to a life behind bars, in jail or an asylum, Elisabeth and her children can begin a new life.

It will not be easy. But with courage, Elisabeth and her children could achieve at least a near-normality, medical experts have told the Evening Standard. Elisabeth has already displayed such fortitude. Firstly in surviving her father and protecting her children from him; then in giving video testimony against him; and finally in confronting him face-to-face in court.

It was her appearance in court in St Pölten, Austria, that prompted her 73-year-old father to plead guilty yesterday to all charges - the murder of his three-day-old son Michael, rape of Elisabeth, whom he assaulted 3,000 times, enslavement and incest.

Elisabeth, who was 18 when she was drugged, kidnapped and forced into the cellar Fritzl built under the family home, is 43 now. Her mother Rosemarie, 69, who to the disbelief of many, maintained no knowledge of what went on in the dungeon, is living in an apartment in Linz, 30 miles from Austria's House of Horrors in Amstetten. Elisabeth was rehoused in January in a four-bedroom, detached home in the village of Mitterkirchen, 25 minutes by car from Amstetten. It is there she is bringing up her cellar or "downstairs" children Kerstin, 20, Stefan, 19, and Felix, six, and reunited with her "upstairs" children Lisa, 16, Monika,15, and Alexander, 12, whose twin brother Michael died of neglect after birth.

Fritzl had removed three of his children to be brought up in daylight by Rosemarie because there was no space in the cellar.

But it means Elisabeth has the difficult task of reconciling the upstairs and downstairs children - two distinct tribes joined, as one commentator put it, by nothing but the "blood of their Frankenstein creator".

Elisabeth is said to suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, suffering flashbacks of the years of abuse in the dark when Fritzl would switch off the lights in preparation for each time he would rape her.

The house in Mitterkirchen is surrounded by fencing and hedges erected two weeks before the trial started. For the duration of the trial the family moved to the clinic in Amstetten where they were treated and counselled in the months after Fritzl's arrest last April.

A carer lives with them in the house as a precaution against sudden anxiety and panic attacks Elisabeth might suffer. Doors are kept open because Elisabeth and her "downstairs" children cannot bear to see them closed.

Neighbours are protective of the family while police have threatened to arrest any journalist caught even driving in the village. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is said to have offered Elisabeth £5million for global film, book and newspaper rights to her story. She has turned them down.

At the clinic in Amstetten, a spokeswoman told the Standard: "We are being very protective. The most important thing is for them to try to regain normality."

Early in the case, her chief psychiatrist Dr Berthold Kepplinger had said of Elisabeth: "She is nothing short of a hero. She is the most remarkable woman I have ever met... She did everything for her children and now they mean everything to her."

She has been photographed shopping with her "upstairs" child Lisa. Onlookers described how she still walks with a slight stoop - caused by years beneath ground where the ceilings were too low - and how she has dyed her hair blonde. But she remains pale and fragile.

The family are said to enjoy their meals around a communal table while Rosemarie is an occasional visitor. The women are on speaking terms but their relationship is inevitably complex.

Problems date back to when Elisabeth learned of her father's 1967 rape conviction and of her mother's forgiveness of him. In the clinic Elisabeth complained that three of her children called Rosemarie "mother". In other respects, it has not been an easy transition, say sources.

The "upstairs" children are said to resent aspects of their new life. They were plucked out of the cellar as babies and never knew the darkness, the sliding back of the door, and the lights going out signalling a rape was about to take place. Consequently they are said to feel injured that they were forced out of school, upset at being called "incest bastards" by playground bullies, and devastated they could no longer go to their usual clubs and after-school activities.

One source said: "They are polite and kind to their siblings they never knew but it is like the relationship of a child whose father returns after 20 years at sea; they are strangers."

For the cellar children, the physical affects of their captivity are receding. They suffered from a poor diet, vitamin deficiencies caused by a lack of sunlight and years spent breathing foetid, damp air. Kerstin, whose organ failure caused by poor diet and lack of medication, triggered their release, is now out of hospital and reunited with her mother and siblings.

She is close to Stefan and the older children receive schooling at home. Felix, the youngest child, needed goggles to cope with the bright sunlight when first released but has since been described by those who have witnessed him playing outdoors as like a "spring lamb or a puppy, exuberant and joyful at being alive".

Felix, who would have been least aware of what went on below ground, has perhaps the best chance of coming out of this "intact". Dr Martin Ward-Platt, a consultant paediatrician from Newcastle, told the Standard: "The psychological damage far outweighs the physical damage.

"We have to be careful because it is easy to create a victimhood in society and we forget that people, children included, can be very resilient and recover from terrible events.

"The Fritzl case is unique so we really don't know the outcome. But Elisabeth has shown remarkable fortitude in testifying - just as all women in rape cases show great courage in confronting their attacker. It is a very challenging thing to do." Dr Nihara Krause, a consultant clinical psychologist in private practice in London, said: "People with horrendous circumstances do go on to lead normal lives depending on the support they get and resources they have within themselves.

"For the Fritzls, the first thing they must do is to come to terms with the trauma and then learn to trust other people."

"None of us can believe how normal Elisabeth seems," her sister Gabriele, 36, said. "She's healthy and chatty and doing very well. She was overjoyed to see her children. She told them they were beautiful, stroked their faces and told them how precious they were."