When Kampusch fled and gave her first TV interview shortly thereafter, her case was followed by the media worldwide. Her strong will was palpable then and still is today.
“3096 days” she called her biography. She wrote another book about her kidnapping in 2016, when she was ten years in freedom.
Her book also served as a template for the film of the same name.
Since her escape and the bestselling books, Natascha Kampusch has occasionally appeared on television – and talked about her experience or how a powerful life can be lived.
Natascha Kampusch: New book 16 years later
Natascha Kampusch is 34 years old today. 16 years ago she managed to escape from eight years of imprisonment. Although she is now a successful author, her harrowing past remains part of her life.
When Kampusch fled and gave her first TV interview shortly thereafter, her case was followed by the media worldwide. Her strong will was palpable then and still is today.
“3096 days” she called her biography. She wrote another book about her kidnapping in 2016, when she was ten years in freedom.
Her book also served as a template for the film of the same name.
Since her escape and the bestselling books, Natascha Kampusch has occasionally appeared on television – and talked about her experience or how a powerful life can be lived.
Her story attracted worldwide interest: Natascha Kampusch is no longer omnipresent in the media, as she told Frauke Ludowig on RTL, but the kidnapping accompanies her throughout her life.
Natascha Kampusch is still recognized on the street today. People turn to her, talk about her behind her back. She herself does not want to remain silent either, the now 34-year-old never wanted that.
That’s why she’s already bringing out her fourth book, about which she and Frauke Ludowig and RTL spoke.
“Sometimes you can really experience it physically. You wake up and it’s like a flashback, you just feel it », she describes her dreams, memories and flashbacks to her time as a kidnapping victim.
Born in Vienna, she uses the word “man” as if it were an everyday experience of many people she is talking about. The extreme opposite is the case.
In 1998, at the age of 10, Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped on her way to school. She was held captive in inhumane conditions for eight years – until she managed to escape in 2006.
Kampusch tells how she painted a door handle on the wall: “This smooth door drives me crazy. And maybe I could have gone out like that.” Kampusch’s small room was locked with a door that could only be opened from the outside.
Forgiveness didn’t last long
Since her debut as an author in 2010, when she published her autobiography “3096 Days”, Natascha Kampusch has now written a total of four books. “10 Years of Freedom” from 2016 is the last work so far in which she draws primarily on biographical experiences. With “Cyberneider” she focused on discrimination on the Internet and with her latest work “Show strength: Coping strategies for a powerful life” she simply wants to help, as Frauke Ludowig explains.
From the day of publication (November 28, 2022), Kampusch gives its readers concrete tips to emerge stronger from difficult situations in life.
When she asks Ludowig for specific examples, Kampusch really gets going: “It’s important not to go into denial, that’s particularly important. It is also important to acknowledge the current situation and practice self-care. A special tip is to listen to your own intuition. To accept help when it is necessary, but also to ask for help.»
The RTL presenter does not shy away from the more sensitive questions, she wants to know from Kampusch whether she has forgiven her tormentor: “Yes, I forgave him relatively quickly because I was able to cope better with the situation at the time. I was just trying to understand what it was about, what the motives might have been. It had nothing to do with me, that was the perpetrator’s motives.”
With the money Kampusch earns from her books, she bought the house in which she was held captive for eight years. It was originally supposed to be a home for refugees, but Kampusch didn’t want that. She doesn’t think it’s right to ever let anyone live there again and leaves the house empty.
In the conversation it can be stated that Kampusch does not really try to put her experiences behind her. Frauke Ludowig notices that too and asks her why.
“For me, I have to deal with the matter all the time, because what happened to me back then and what it cost me in years of my life will never go away,” Kampusch replies.
When it comes to family, she resists. She couldn’t imagine starting her own business at the moment. However, her greatest wish is to work as an actress.