AUSTRIA:The Fritzl children are said to be coping extremely well with the shock of their new life, writes Derek Scally
IT WAS the "astonishing" reunion of a family divided by the shocking double life of a domineering father.
Three children - Lisa (16), Monika (14) and Alexander (12) - thought their mother Elisabeth had abandoned them to be raised by her own parents.
The other three - Kerstin (19), Stefan (18) and Felix (5) - had never seen daylight after spending their lives locked up with Elisabeth in a sound-proofed underground dungeon behind two reinforced steel doors.
On Sunday, the siblings were reunited in the clinic where Kerstin lies in a critical condition after being hospitalised with a mysterious illness.
That illness is what blew the lid on what one Austrian newspaper yesterday called "the worst crime, ever". It also made the emotional reunion possible.
"It is astonishing how the children came together quickly, astonishing that there was such a good mood," said clinic director Berthold Kepplinger.
Another reunion, between Elisabeth Fritzl and her mother Rosemarie, was more emotional.
"The two hugged each other, weeping," he said.
The reunion was the end of Josef Fritzl's perfect crime, nearly a quarter of a century after it began. He claimed she had run away but he had locked her away in the cellar, where he fed and clothed her - as well as the children that resulted from his regular sexual assaults.
Clinic staff say the children are coping extremely well with the shock: they are all seeing psychiatrists while Felix and Stefan are working with speech therapists and a physiotherapist after a lifetime in the cramped dungeon. Austria's most notorious family is being kept well away from the huge media pack that has descended on the small Austrian town of Amstetten.
Elisabeth's six siblings are receiving legal advice as they try to comprehend how they were deceived for 24 years by their domineering father.
Yesterday, his dominance appeared to be finally broken: while police reported he was "calm and collected" at his remand trial, Fritzl's newly appointed lawyer Rudolf Mayer admitted his client, once a respected man about town, was "emotionally broken".
"I see no sympathy here," he said. "He looks very sad." As the light faded last night, about 200 people gathered for a vigil on the marketplace in Amstetten holding candles and umbrellas.
Until last weekend, the pretty Austrian town's claim to fame was its delicious fruit wine. Now it is the Fritzl family.
"I remember how afraid Elisabeth was of her father and how she panicked about being home on time," said one former schoolmate, who asked not to be named. "When I heard she'd run away to a cult, it seemed like the logical consequence of trying to free herself from home and her domineering father." Former tenants of the apartment block on the Ybbsstraße told stories of their now notorious landlord.
"Mostly you only saw him in the evening, often with shopping bags," said Sabine Kirschbichler (25), who lived in a second-floor apartment with her brother Thomas for two years until 2003. "I thought, 'Something's not right in his marriage if he's always doing the shopping'." Thomas added: "At least now we know why we couldn't rent a storage room in the cellar."