200805151326 | Fritzl daughter says thank you

Fritzl daughter says thank you

Vienna - The Austrian woman kept as a sex slave by her father for 24 years has thanked people for their support in her first public message since being released with her children, the daily Kurier reported on Wednesday.

In a handwritten message displayed on a notice board in the square of their home town of Amstetten, Elisabeth Fritzl and her six surviving children thanked the many well-wishers for their messages of support since they were freed from a cramped, windowless dungeon at the end of April.

The family is currently being shielded away from the media glare and is receiving psychiatric counselling in a clinic in Amstetten, 100 kilometres west of Vienna.
In a drawing of an open pair of hands, Elisabeth Fritzl, now 42, writes: "I wish for the recovery of my daughter Kerstin, the love of my children, the protection of my family and for people with heart and compassion."

Elisabeth's father, 73-year-old Josef Fritzl, has confessed to imprisoning her since she was 18, repeatedly raping her and forcing her to bear seven children from that abuse.

One of the children died soon after birth, three were taken upstairs to live "normal" lives as Fritzl's "grandchildren" and the other three remained incarcerated with their mother in the 55-square-metre dungeon below the family home.

It was the hospitalisation of the eldest child, 19-year-old Kerstin, on April 19 that brought the shocking case to light.
Kerstin has since been placed in an artificially-induced coma and is in intensive care on a life-support machine. Initially, her condition was life-threatening, but doctors have since said she has stabilised.

Among the other handwritten messages from the family, Kerstin's 18-year-old brother, who has also never seen daylight, wrote of his delight over experiencing sun, fresh air, his family and nature.
The third child held all his life underground, a five-year-old boy, dreamt of driving in a car, on a snow-sledge, of playing with other children and running in fields, the newspaper said.

The article quoted the head of the hospital, Berthold Kepplinger, as saying that the family must "very carefully and very slowly be led back into reality".