3096 Days

Book number 18 in the 100+ Reading Challenge.

3,096 Days
by Natascha Kampusch

Outer back cover: On 2 March 1998 ten-year-old Natascha Kampusch was snatched off a street in Vienna by a stranger and bundled into a white van. Hours later she was lying on a cold cellar floor, rolled up in a blanket. When she emerged from captivity in 2006, having endured one of the longest abductions in recent history, her childhood had gone.
In 3,096 Days Natascha tells her amazing story for the first time: her difficult childhood, what exactly happened on that fateful morning when she was on her way to school, her long imprisonment in a five-square-metre dungeon, and the physical and mental abuse she suffered from her abductor, Wolfgang Priklopil - who committed suicide by throwing himself under a train on the day she managed to make her escape.
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 learned how to manipulate her captor. And how, against inconceivable odds, she managed to escape with her spirit intact.

An absolutely amazing book that I've been meaning to read since it came out.

Several times while reading the book I had to remind myself that Kampusch is actually 2 years younger than me. It felt like I was reading the story o someone who was older than me, and about something that happened a long time ago. I think it's because it's so far from my own life that it's hard to believe that Kampusch abduction happened while I was alive. And it's not even that long ago that she managed to escape!

I can't begin to imagine what it must have felt like to be trapped like that, and for so long! I guess she is very lucky to not only be alive but to have actually managed to stay strong for so long.

I especially liked Kampusch views on the Stockholm Syndrome, and after reading her book I don't just kind of understand it (as well as I can anyway) but I also agree with her.

I think everyone should read this book. It's just such a great book and it's interesting to know what she thought/did etc.