One of the big international stories this week was about the Austrian, Josef Fritzl, on trial for imprisoning his daughter for twenty-four years and fathering seven children with her, one of them dying from lack of post-natal care. When she was eighteen years old, he trapped her in the basement and raped her repeatedly, sometimes in front of the children. Six of the seven children were raised by him and his wife, after he told everyone that their daughter ran off to join a cult and would leave these babies at their doorstep. They say that the wife knew nothing of what was going on. Apparently, twenty-four years later, the eldest child gets sick and is taken to the hospital where the hospital employees realize something isn't right and the jig is up. The police come and find the remaining children behind a door with a code behind a bookcase. The children, when ones raised by their father/grandparents and the imprisoned ones are all reunited, in therapy and in a secret location so their identities will not be made public.
So this guy went to trial this week and pleaded guilty to incest and forced imprisonment but wouldn't admit to murder via negligence of the two-day old baby until today. After eleven hours of video testimony from his daughter, he changed his tune. He will be sentenced tomorrow and since the guy is seventy-three years old, chances are that he'll die in prison.
Where am I getting with this? Well, basically, this poor woman and her children are damaged for the rest of their lives. After twenty-four years of living in a locked basement, chained to a wall and being raped by her father, she will never be normal and her children will never, ever be normal or healthy. Since three of the children were never exposed to the sun, they are having a difficult time in bright light and dealing with the outside world.These people will have to live with this forever, time may make it less painful, but it will never be forgotten. And what of their abuser? He gets to sit in jail, have three square meals and live the rest of his life in moderate comfort. He probably won't be alive for twenty-four years to pay back what he had taken from his daughter nor will be in the conditions his daughter was in. Most likely, he will be in a psychiatric ward. So is this guy getting what he deserves? I don't think so.
What angers me most about this, and the world in general, is that people can do some terrible stuff to each other, but their lives go on and the punishment they deserve never reaches them. You can say that this guy is going to be incarcerated and will be known for this forever and shunned from society and all, but is that enough punishment? I think fair punishment would be that he live in the same exact situation for twenty-four years; I think that would be a fair punishment.
I rarely believe in karma, that Hindu idea that what you send out to the universe, you get back. But the reality is, if you fuck with people, one day, they will retaliate which is just human nature. It is painful to see someone get away from what they've done with no retribution at all; their ability to live their lives as if they had done nothing angers me. Yet, it happens everyday and we have to live and deal with it. I think we can all learn a little from something from the Josef Fritzl case which is when you are wrong, admit it, apologize and just accept what may happen next. Don't try to turn it around, point fingers and make everyone else look bad to save your ass. One day, someone will call you on it, find your secret basement and it won't be pretty.
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