Joseph Fritzl's name has become synonymous with the cruel inhumanity of a father abusing his daughter, imprisoning her and forcing her into incest.
In popular Austria, even a new worker was invented - "Fritzlen", which means secret imprisonment and torture in harsh conditions for a long period of time by an innocent person. The name became a terrifying varnish, that Fritzl himself was willing to pay hundreds of euros to the authorities in Austria hundreds of euros, so that his family name would be officially changed. The main thing is not to be identified with his actions. Thus, his new last name, "Maryhoff", hangs near the front door of the cell in the most guarded prison, where 86-year-old Josef Fritzl is serving a life sentence for keeping his daughter imprisoned for 24 years in an underground prison, where he raped her for at least 3,000 Times and put her seven times pregnant.
The daughter, Elizabeth, went through the births alone in the special detention apartment her father built for her, under the family home in the city of Amsterdam in central Austria.
One child died shortly after birth.
This death made it possible for the paternal grandfather to also discuss the killing, as he prevented his daughter from giving birth under "normal" conditions.
Three children grew up with their mother in the secret underground apartment.
The other three were "released" and "adopted" by their grandparents.
Neighbors who asked questions were told that daughter Elizabeth had run away from home and joined the cult.
She placed the babies on the doorstep of her parents' house in the dark of night and left them letters asking her to take care of her children.
The horrific story of the daughter's incarceration and sexual exploitation for decades was revealed in 2008, after Joseph Fritzl agreed to his daughter's desperate request to bring their eldest daughter to the hospital, after she contracted a life-threatening illness.
This time, too, Fritzl claimed that his "disappearing" daughter had left the sick 19-year-old on the doorstep of her parents' house and asked them to take care of her.
Elizabeth Fritzl,
Police have opened an investigation against Elizabeth on charges of neglecting her children.
The local media asked the mother to contact the authorities to give doctors details about the medical history of the sick girl in critical condition.
Elizabeth managed to convince her father to allow her and her two sons left in the prison apartment to go to the police.
There, before the interrogators, after being assured that she would not confront her father and never see him again, she recounted the horrific story of her life from the day she, at the age of 18, was drugged by Fritzl and handcuffed to the underground detention apartment he had prepared for her.
One of the biggest criminals set free?
Fritzl, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2009, is making headlines these days due to the theoretical possibility that bureaucratic proceedings would create a situation where he could in two years seek a shortening of his prison sentence and be released from prison after only 14 years - ten years less. in her.
Fritzl is currently serving his sentence in a special prison for mentally ill criminals.
A local court decided in late September, based on a psychiatric opinion that Fritzl was no longer a danger to society, to transfer him to a regular prison.
In such a prison, Fritzl could, in accordance with the procedures set forth in the law, file another two years' request to shorten his sentence and be released.
The prosecution was quick to appeal to a higher court to stop the transfer.
The appeal was upheld and required by the local court to reconsider its decision, based on the grim details of the sentence published at the time against Fritzl.
For this purpose, another psychiatric opinion was ordered, which will probably be submitted in the middle of next month.
In the run-up to the retrial, this affair was leaked to the Austrian media, which is dealing with the requisite shock.
The possibility that one of the greatest criminals in the modern history of Austria will go free and spend the last years of his life in his home as if he had not committed a terrible sin provokes sharp public criticism.
Fritzl, for his part, dreams of the day when he will enjoy a normal life again, the kind he prevented his daughter from doing.
The Austrian daily Krona Zeitung reported three years ago, on the tenth anniversary of the revelation of the Fritzl affair, that prisoner number 90632, who had changed his name, said behind bars that he "did not feel guilty" and that he only "wanted to protect his daughter from the world, drugs and alcohol."
The daughter, Elizabeth, and her six children have avoided any contact with their father-grandfather since their release.
Elizabeth, now 53, lives in a new identity, and has managed to rebuild her life and the lives of her children.
She married and lived with her husband and children in a well-kept house, without a basement, in a small town near Amsterdam.
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