Biography & Memoir Books:

3096 Days

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8% of people buy 3096 Days and Arthur Allan Thomas: The Inside Story ~ Paperback / softback ~ Ian Wishart.

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Description

On 2 March 1989 ten-year-old Natascha Kampusch was snatched off the street by a stranger and bundled into a white van. Hours later she found herself in a dark cellar, wrapped in a blanket. When she emerged eight years later, her childhood had gone. In “3,096 Days” Natascha tells her incredible story for the first time: her difficult childhood, what exactly happened on the day of her abduction, her imprisonment in a five-square-metre dungeon, and the mental and physical abuse she suffered from her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil. “3,096 Days” is ultimately a story about the triumph of the human spirit. It describes how, in a situation of almost unbearable hopelessness, she slowly learned how to manipulate her captor. And how, against inconceivable odds, she managed to escape unbroken.

Extract

‘It cost me immeasurable strength to remain consistent in my behaviour toward him throughout the entire period of my imprisonment. Always resisting. Always saying no. Always defending myself against attacks and always explaining calmly to him that he had gone too far and had no right to treat me that way. Even on days where I had given up on myself and felt completely worthless, I couldn’t afford to show any weakness. On days like that, I told myself in my childish view of things that I was doing it for him. So that he wouldn’t become an even more evil person. As if it was my responsibility to rescue him from completely falling into moral abyss.

Whenever he had his outbursts of rage, beating me with his fists and feet, there was nothing I could do. Similarly, I was powerless to do anything about the forced labour, being locked up, the hunger and the humiliations suffered while cleaning the house. This kind of oppression formed the framework in which I lived; they were an integral component of my world. The only way for me to deal with it was for me to forgive the kidnapper his transgressions. I forgave him for kidnapping me, and I forgave him every single time he beat me and tormented me. This act of forgiveness gave me back the power over my experience and made it possible for me to live with it. If I had not adopted this attitude instinctively from the very beginning, I would probably have destroyed myself in anger and hate – or had been broken by the humiliations that I was subjected to daily. In this way, I would have been eliminated; this way would have entailed even more dire consequences than giving up my old identity, my past, my name. By forgiving him, I pushed his deeds away from me. They could no longer make me small or destroy me; after all I had forgiven them. They were only evil deeds any longer that he had committed and would rebound only on him, no longer on me.

And I had my small victories: My refusal to call him ‘My Lord’ or ‘Maestro’. My refusal to kneel. My appeals to his conscience which sometimes fell on fertile ground. They were vital to my survival. They gave me the illusion that I was an equal partner in the relationship within certain parameters – because they gave me a kind of counter-power over him. And it showed me something very important, namely that I still existed as a person and had not been degraded to an object with no will of her own. ' Natascha Kampusch

Author Biography

Natascha Kampusch was born on 17 February 1998 in Vienna and became victim, at the age of ten, to what proved to be one of the longest abductions in recent history. In 2006 she gained her freedom. On the day she escaped, her abductor Wolfgang Priklopil committed suicide by throwing himself under a train. Since then Natascha has been trying to live a normal life. In spring 2010, aged 22, she graduated from university.

Release date Australia
September 16th, 2010
Audience
  • General (US: Trade)
Country of Publication
United Kingdom
Imprint
Viking
Pages
256
Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd
Dimensions
129x198x16
ISBN-13
9780670919994
Product ID
8042963

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