The doctors who witnessed the tearful reunion had no doubt: this was a mother brought together at last with the daughter she had not seen for 24 years – and totally unaware of the terrible fate which had befallen her throughout that time.
The sight which greeted Rosemarie Fritzl at the psychiatric hospital was a prematurely aged 42-year-old woman – her daughter Elisabeth, who had disappeared at the age of 18.
Yet now, as the world reels from the hideous daily revelations emerging about Rosemarie’s husband Josef Fritzl and how he subjected their daughter to decades of sexual abuse which led to seven pregnancies in their cellar, the question being asked far beyond the borders of Austria is: how could Rosemarie not be aware of the horrors being perpetrated upon her own daughter in her own house?
One of the doctors, Berthold Kepplinger, who was present when Rosemarie and Elisabeth were reunited in the immediate aftermath of Fritzl’s exposure and arrest, said: “The wife of the accused man clearly had no knowledge of the terrible fate of her daughter. The two women fell into each other’s arms and just wept bitterly.
“They did not want to let go of each other and just held each other.”
The two said they loved each other and pledged never to be separated again, with the mother saying: “I am so sorry, I had no idea.”
But in the days since arrest of Fritzl, now 88, as the world’s media have descended upon the small town of Amstetten and the questions have mounted by the day, suspicion has inevitably begun to fall on Rosemarie Fritzl, now 85.
That speculation will only increase following the claims made by a tenant who lived with the Fritzls for 12 years. For, as the Daily Express can reveal, Fritzl and his wife went on separate holidays for all that time – which is bound to raise the question who was looking after Elisabeth and her children in the cellar when her father was away for weeks at a stretch?
Alfred Dubanovsky, now 57, moved out of the three-storey house only last year, having occupied a 42-square metre flat just a few feet above the cellar in which Elisabeth and her family were imprisoned.
The floor on which he lived was split into a number of flats, let to as many as eight different tenants. Rosemarie and her husband lived on the top two storeys with three of the children Fritzl fathered with his daughter.
Dubanovsky, who went to school with Elisabeth, says of the Fritzls: “In all that time they never once went on holiday together.”
Her sister Christine (whose surname has not been made public and who was the first of Fritzl’s family to speak out publicly) says Rosemarie was only 17 when she married Fritzl, an engineer. The picture which emerges is of a passive wife who lived in thrall to her husband throughout their 51-year marriage.
But Dubanovsky suggests that the relationship was not exactly as it has been painted so far. He says: “Rosemarie was pretty quiet when he was around, true, but she knew how to enjoy herself when she was on her own. She went on day trips with other older women and she used to go on holiday to Greece without him.”
He adds: “While she was on holiday in Greece I guess he was looking after the cellar family and she cared for them when he was in Thailand for weeks at a time.”
Austrian police investigating the case have stated publicly that they do not believe Rosemarie had any knowledge of her husband’s crimes.
Her sister Christine has said that Fritzl told Rosemarie that Elisabeth, one of the couple’s seven children, had run away at the age of 18 in 1984, saying she had been drawn into a religious cult.
But former tenant Dubanovsky says he finds it hard to believe that Rosemarie never saw or questioned the huge amounts of food Fritzl would take by wheelbarrow into the cellar late at night.
“The amount was far too much for five people and his wife must have noticed that,” says Dubanovsky. “It was not my imagination that they used to buy a lot of food for the size of their family – a friend of mine who also lived there once commented to me that he was surprised that the enormous amounts were constantly being delivered into the cellar.
“The amount was far too much for five people and his wife must have noticed that,” says Dubanovsky. “It was not my imagination that they used to buy a lot of food for the size of their family – a friend of mine who also lived there once commented to me that he was surprised that the enormous amounts were constantly being delivered into the cellar.
“Looking back I suppose this must have been shortly before times when he went on holiday.”
It has also emerged that Fritzl had a conviction for rape, attempted rape and indecent exposure and had been locked up for 18 months back in 1967.
Christine, now 71, said: “Josef is a despot, I always hated him. I was 16 when he was locked up on rape charges and I found that crime simply disgusting, not least because he already had four children with my sister at that point.”
After his release Rosemarie bore him three more and, says Christine,lived under his tyrannical control – too frightened to challenge him over the hours he spent in the basement, which was strictly out of bounds.
“Every morning at nine, ‘Sepp’ went down into his cellar, apparently to complete technical drawings of machines which he had sold to companies,” she says.
“Sometimes he stayed down there all night. Rosi wasn’t even allowed to bring him a cup of coffee. Questions about why he was down there so long were banned.”
Christine has also made mention of Fritzl always running his wife down and mocking her weight.
“It was a bit embarrassing because everyone knew that the two of them hadn’t had sex for years. He would always say: ‘My wife is much too chubby for me.’”
A friend of Fritzl’s, Paul Hoera, recalls Rosemarie being quiet and withdrawn whenever her husband was around, but adds: “She didn’t
tend to say what she was thinking but whenever Elisabeth was mentioned she would get up and leave the table.
“I thought she was a cold person. I don’t know what their relationship was like – but I know that she was not his type. He told me he liked thin women and that he had a girlfriend. I never guessed it was his daughter.”
Certainly at this early stage in the investigation, much remains unclear. But a source close to the inquiry says: “The questions over how much Rosemarie knew are mounting up.”
Not least among these is the news that investigators say that parcels of mail-order clothing were delivered to the address under missing Elisabeth’s name and it “defies logic” that Rosemarie would not have been at all suspicious.
Incredibly, Elisabeth is said to have built up a history of credit transactions during her years of incarceration – although it is likely that her father placed orders on her behalf.
If Rosemarie did not know the hideous truth hiding beneath her floorboards, it is clear that her unquestioning acceptance of extraordinary circumstances made Fritzl’s life of lies and depravity all the easier to conduct.
This article first appeared in the Daily Express on May 3, 2008. Ages and dates have been updated.
