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Amstetten: The teenage boyfriend of the Austrian woman locked in her father's cellar has spoken for the first time about their relationship.
The man, named only as Andreas K, now 42, attended a residential catering college with Elisabeth Fritzl in 1984, when they were both 18.
He said Elisabeth, whom he called Sissy, was "pretty, but serious and withdrawn".
He had believed her father's story that she had joined a cult and was shocked to learn about her ordeal.
Elisabeth's father Josef (73) locked her up in his cellar for the next 24 years, fathering seven children with her.
"She spoke of her parents and her home only once, and said that she had a very strict father. She said he got her a waitress apprenticeship - but she would have preferred to become a beautician."
Shunning intimacy
"I saw her in the school yard for the first time. I quickly fell in love with her and I noticed that she was slowly opening up and started to show interest in me," Andreas said recalling how they went for long walks in the woods.
"She was very tender but also very timid. We never slept with each other, she did not want to - or was not able to. In such moments, she would suddenly pull back like a snail in its house," he said.
Police reckon Elisabeth had already been sexually abused by her father for more than seven years at that stage .
The last time he saw Elisabeth was when her parents picked her up from the college to take her home in July, 1984. A month later, on August 28, Fritzl lured her into a dungeon in his cellar and locked her up for the next two-and-a-half decades.
Andreas recalled: "As we kissed goodbye, we promised each other to write as often as possible. But then I thought she lost interest in me. Now I realise she was no longer able to answer my letters."
- The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2008
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