Dungeon Children of Amstetten

[Guest Brisbane Times]

They growl and coo at each other using unintelligible words and signs to communicate, and the five-year-old prefers to crawl rather than walk upright.

 

Outside, the excitement of the sun, the moon and fresh air is almost too much to bear while a ride in an elevator - and a mobile telephone - have sparked unabashed wonder.

 

For the so-called cellar children of Amstetten, life outside their father's tiny prison is proving to be a mixture of joy and terror as they try to acclimatise to the cacophany of stimuli of a modern world.

 

According to Austrian police officers, Stefan Fritzl, 18, and his little brother Felix, five, only learned to speak by watching television with their mother Elisabeth, 42, but their speech is only partly intelligible to those outside the family.

 

According to police chief Leopold Etz, who has come face to face with the two boys, it is only half true that they can "speak" : "They communicate with noises that are a mixture of growling and cooing. If they want to say something so others understand them as well they have to focus and really concentrate which seems to be extremely exhausting for them," he told the Daily Telegraph.

 

"Felix prefers to crawl but he can walk upright if he wants."

 

According to Dr Berthold Kepplinger, who examined the brothers at a neuropsychiatric clinic near their home town, the boys communicate between each other but not in a normal way and while their mother taught them to read and write a little, she herself had lost much of her childhood knowledge after her imprisonment at the age of 18.

 

The children were not provided with any books and TV was their sole teacher. When little Fritz saw the moon, he is reported to have asked if it was "God up there?" and he exploded in gurgles when he saw a cow.

 

Doctors are reported to be worried that since he emerged from his prison, he is constantly excited and keeps trying to touch the air with his hands. The sun sent him into paroxysms of excitement and when he realised he could not keep his gaze on it, he covered his face with his hands.

 

A ride in an elevator frightened him and he clung to his mother, but when a police officer's mobile phone rang - and then he spoke into it - the little boy could not conceal his wonder.

 

Details of the children's first days outside have emerged as questions begin to be asked about whether Josef Fritzl could really have concealed his horrific prison for so long without an accomplice.

 

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