Exploring The Shift
The shift is not a thing. It is the action of discovering Self.

Here is a collection of text and video snippets from the interview which Natascha Kampusch gave on Wednesday for the Austrian press and TV. Most of the links are in German, but I have translated a few excerpts and the video may be well worth watching even if you do not understand the language

Links

Below are a couple of links with original transcripts and footage and links with partial English translations by various newspapers. Further down, you'll find my own translations of parts which I found interesting. Also not two other posts in this blogs with thoughts about the case and the interview here and here

Background story via International Herald Tribune (use their search feature with Kampusch)
Her open letter to the media a week prior to the interview (some interview parts refer to this)
Video compilation from the TV Interview (German, SpiegelOnline)
YouTube video snippet from the TV Interview (German, speaking about Priklopil)
Transcript of the TV interview (German, ORF)
Parts from the first print interview (German, www.news.at)
UPDATE1: Partial Transcript: Natascha Kampusch TV interview (English, Times Online)
UPDATE2: Partial Transcript: Natascha Kampusch Interview (English, The Australian)
UPDATE3: Partial CNN-Transcript (English, On that page use your browser's in-page search feature and look for "NATASCHA KAMPUSCH")
 

English Translation of Interviews

The following quotes from the interviews highlight a few points which I find most remarkable about Ms. Kampusch, that is her apparent strength and clarity despite what has happened. They have been selected quite purposefully in line with the intent of this forum and they may not be entirely unbiased or representative of the interview (well, probably only the full interview will be able to be representative of itself).

Print Interview with Austrian Magazine News (excerpts)

NEWS: You considered escape even when you were only twelve years old?

Kampusch: I had promised that to myself from that age on. I took this promise from my current self. I promised to my future self that I would never ignore the thought about escape.

NEWS: Would you be willing to tell us a bit about your doctors and caretakers?

Kampusch: Yes, sure. Mr. Friedrich is quite okay. He is very intelligent and always knows what I mean. My Lawyers and my media consultant also support me as good as they can. I have accepted them already and most likely they also accept me. They are very okay. Well, mostly.

NEWS: What do you mean by this?

Kampusch: There was a little conflict between my lawyer Dr. Lansky and professor Friedrich. One wanted – that in response to your first question – that I leave the ARH (the sheltered institution where she currently lives), the other wanted that I stay there for some more time. There I had to conciliate and took care that the conflict subsided.

TV Interview with Austrian ORF (excerpts)

ORF: Who are the people with whom you speak most? Whom you trust most?

Kampusch: Well … whom I trust most? Hmm, I don't know. Dr. Friedrich for example. Also the other psychologists who care for me. But most of all I trust my family. And myself

ORF: You are quite cut off from the world outside. You wrote in your letter that you are feeling fine and that you are treated very well. But you also said, that you feel a bit patronized.

Kampusch: Yes, that's that I wanted to indicate a moment ago. It're really hard. Everybody wants to manipulate you somehow. They have good intent but … The first nights they tried to make me sleep. In the beginning they did not want to understand that I am awake at 4AM and go to bed at 11PM.

But I convinced them that I can take care of that myself. And that without taking sedatives or other medicine.

ORF: What are the things which annoy you most?

Kampusch: Well, for example … hmm … stuff which is simply not true. Abuse or … Most of all I am angry about those fotos from my dungeon, because … that's nobody's business. I don't wanto to look into other people's sleeping rooms or living rooms also. Why then should people, when they open their newspaper, look at my room?

This is an intrusion in my personal affairs and I believe that this is nobody's business.

ORF: You said that you want to donate part of your donations for something else. What do you have in mind?

Kampusch: It will be about those kidnapped, abused and tortured and killed young women who disappear in Mexico. There is a region there where many women are murdered. There the women are kidnapped before or after work and are mistreated in the most brutal and bestial ways. This is something I want to interfere with.

I want to use the money to prevent more such cases. And also I plan, because I know how inhumane and degrading it is to let other people hunger … I want that people who suffer hunger so to say … I want to start a program, that people can help themselves to fight hunger.

ORF: You wrote in your letter to the media that, metaphorically, he (Mr. Priklopil) had carried you on hands and kicked you with feets.

Kampusch: Yes.

ORF: But that you were equally strong.

Kampusch: […] I think that I was even stronger.

ORF: How?

Kampusch: Well. He had an unstable personality. I had, because I had a very healthy social environment, a – well – not exactly a happy, but a loving family. Both parents have always made me undertand that they love me. And he did not have that.

In a way he was lacking self confidence. And that. This … feeling of security. He was lacking that.

ORF: There must have been something happening that you became aware of that.

Kampusch: Basically I was aware within the first few hours of the kidnapping that he was lacking something. That he had a deficit.

ORF: Did you really were aware of the way (directly after the kidnap)? I mean … you must have had unbelievable fear.

Kampusch: From the first moment I had absolutely, besides my concerns about what he would do with me, no fear. Quite the opposite. I thought: He will kill me anyway. So you can use your last few hours, minutes or whatever for something useful, to try to make something out of that. To escape or persuade him or something.

ORF: Did you celebrate birthday, Chrismas, Easter? The big holdiays for someone who's young?

Kampusch: Err … yes, I have celebrated that.

ORF: Did you celebrate that with Mr. Priklopil?

Kampusch: Yes, of course I have celebrated that with Mr. Priklopil gefeiert! I coerced him to celebrate that with me. Yes, he gave me many presents. Easter eggs, or Christmas presents and such. It's been simply … Other children and teens can buy something. Of course I could buy nothing.

And obviously he thought that he would give me at least a bit of compensation or equality with the other people out there who live in the normal reality.

ORF: There you are saying something quite interesting. Do you think he felt guilty about that.

Kampusch: Yes, a lot. Somehow this was ambivalent. I think there was a strong bad conscience. But he tried to conceal that in a massive way and deny it. And especially that showed me, that he felt guilty.

ORF: How was he? If you have to deal with that person every day … have to.

Kampusch: Now and then he somehow suggested in a certain way how I chould betray him and how I could escape. So, inside his paranoia this had occured to him.

It was almost as if, as if he wanted to that somewhen … that I would be free eventually. That it goes wrong. That justice wins or something like that.

ORF: What was different on the day of your escape? While otherwise you have always felt threatened?

Kampusch: In that moment I know, if not now than maybe never. I looked. He had tured around. And I had told him in the months before: I can not live that way anymore. I will certainly try to escape from you. And … Yes, I thought, if not now …

I also had enormous worry to ruin the world view of his mother and his closer friends and neighbors. And to destroy it. Because … You know, he was, so to say, the nice and helpful guy. Always friendly. Always correct.

I also did not want to do that to his mother, did not want that she knew this other side of her son. I had quite noticed that they had a very good relationship. That she loved him very much and he liked her also. A lot. Yes.

And I'm totally sorry for Mrs. Priklopil. That this picture is now destroyed. And that she lost her faith in the world. And the faith in her son. And her son also.

ORF: How did you learn to deal with your loneliness?

Kampusch: Well, I wasn't lonly? In my heart was my family. And happy memories were with me. And I had promised myself one day, that I will become older and stronger and more powerful, to be able to escape. I had, so to say, made a pact with my later self. That it would come and set the little twelve year old girl free.