2008: Discovery of the Fritzl Basement Prison

In the spring of 2008, in the Lower Austrian town of Amstetten, an extreme case of family violence was uncovered. For 24 years, since 1984, the pensioner Josef Fritzl had been keeping his then 18-year-old daughter and several children he had fathered with her in a basement prison he built himself. The perpetrator had already been convicted of sexual violence in 1967, but was described as an unassuming and friendly neighbour as the crime was coming to light.

Josef Fritzl’s basement prison garnered more international attention than almost any other crime in the Second Republic. Only two years earlier, in 2006, Austria had hit the headlines as a place of violent crimes when the details of Natascha Kampusch’s kidnapping and long imprisonment became known. The tone of reporting in both cases was sensationalist and disregarded the dignity of the victims. The town of Amstetten became the focus of previously unknown and above all unwanted media attention from around the world. TV crews and journalists spent weeks there trying to grab a good photo or story.

For a long time, the question of what to do with the house in Amstetten remained unresolved. The cellar under the garden shed that had contained the prison was sealed up with concrete and the main house was sold. The new owner attracted attention when he announced his intention to convert it into apartments for the female employees of a strip club. Today the outside has been repainted and the building houses rental apartments.