London, May 8 (ANI): Cellar girl Elisabeth Fritzl implored a friend to visit her - just before her rapist father Josef imprisoned her in the dungeon.
In a touching letter to an old school friend, which was obtained exclusively by The Sun on May 7, the tragic girl said: "See you soon."
Elisabeth, then 18 and known as Sissy, sent the male friend a series of letters. It has been revealed.
In view of her subsequent shocking ordeal, they are heavy with irony.
In one she told her pal: "I hope you keep your promise that you'll visit me as soon as you get your driving licence."
In another she talked about a night out clubbing, saying excitedly: "We had so much fun."
And in a third, written in August 1984 just 25 days before she vanished, she said: "Basically I'm doing pretty fine."
The sweet-natured letters - in which the full names of her friends have since been Tippexed out, leaving just initials - paint a picture of Elisabeth as a chirpy teenager.
She reveals she had a boyfriend and describes a youthful enjoyment of nights out, a new hairstyle and playing sports, including football.
Some passages suggest she had been ill, was facing a gruelling exam and had spent time in a flat away from her family home.
Elizabeth is now recovering at a clinic in Amstetten with two of the children freed from the dungeon with her 12 days ago - Stefan, 18, and Felix, five.
A third cellar child, 19-year-old Kerstin, is still gravely ill with a kidney infection.
Kds being treated in wooded refuge
The children of Josef Fritzl will be getting their first taste of the outside world after a lifetime imprisoned underground, at a leading psychiatric clinic in Austrian woods.
The Landesklinikum clinic in Mauer, set deep within woodland, will provide Elisabeth, Stefan and Felix Fritzl with a fence from the world's attention as they are smoothly re-introduced to independence.
After years without windows, light or air, doctors say it will be at least three or four weeks before they can go out.
Doctors at the clinic say that Stefan Fritzl, 18, and his brother Felix, 5, are responding well to treatment, reports the Mirror.
They are slowly becoming accustomed to the light and their skin is getting darker, they add.
To simplify their re-introduction to the outside world, the specialists have reproduced the confined dimensions and conditions of the cellar where Josef Fritzl had kept them locked up from birth.
Doctors say that Stefan walks with a stoop as a result of years under the low ceiling of the cellar, and while Felix is able to walk he chooses to crawl.
Their mother Elisabeth, 52, is already walking around the clinic after 24 years of being imprisoned inside the dungeon where Josef repeatedly raped her and where she gave birth to seven of his children.
Doctors are also working out how best to permit Elisabeth to see her oldest daughter Kerstin, 19, who remains in a coma in an Amstetten hospital seven kilometres away.
The teenager, the first born underground, has stabilised in recent days but doctors are waiting to find out the effect of her total organ failure on her brain.
Son-in-law describes family's 'terrible ordeal'
The son-in-law of dungeon dad Josef Fritzl has described how his father-in-law, whom he had believed to be a "normal family man," kept his dual life under wraps with a string of lies.
Horst Herlbauer, who is married to Fritzl's second eldest daughter Rosemarie, 47, also spoke of the "mental torture and anguish" sparked by revelations that the beast fathered seven children by sex slave daughter Elisabeth.
"It's a terrible ordeal beyond words," the Mirror quoted him, as saying.
Horst revealed that he had frequently visited the house but "never had any reason" to suspect that his sister-in-law and three of her children were being held captive in an underground cellar.
Claiming that Fritzl seemed like a "normal dad and family man," Horst said he believed his story that Elisabeth had left home to live with a cult.
"We always believed Elisabeth had run away and not come back, everybody did," he said.
"That was the truth to us, and we didn't question it, even when some of her children appeared and were adopted into the family.
"Although Rosemarie left home with me more than 25 years ago, we went back for family occasions.
"But we never suspected anything was wrong and never had any reason to think anything had happened to Elisabeth. Nobody could have imagined what had really taken place. Josef seemed be a normal dad and family man.
"He was always working hard in his job or on the house and there never appeared to be any problems at home.
"He was outgoing, friendly and popular with the neighbours. It's so hard to take this in," he added.
Since the disclosure of Fritzl's crimes, Horst's wife has left their home in Traun, Austria.
He said: "It's impossible to describe the mental torture and anguish she's been through. It's beyond words. It's unreal. The whole family needs time to get over this."
Elisabeth, 42, was locked up with her children Kerstin, 19, Stefan, 18, and five-year-old Felix. Lisa, 16, 14-year-old Monika and Alexander, 12, lived with Fritzl and his wife upstairs. Another child died in infancy. (ANI)
