I feel sorry for the 3 children that lived upstairs. They must be torn between the Mother and Grandmother. They were brought up by the Grandmother and of course they are going to be more close to her. You would think Elizabeth would understand this. By tossing her Mother out is going to cause more problems for these children.

To Judy in Canada- Re: your comment "You would think Elizabeth would understand this".... You have got to be kidding. The girl spent 2 decades in a hole under ground, raped,beaten, bore her FATHER'S children and watched them slowly die a little each day... and she SHOULD UNDERSTAND????... She doesn't have to do a DAMN thing but get through the remainder of her very devestated life always wondering IF her mother knew or not. We don't know what went on for 20 years, and we certainly do not know what is going on now. What ever it was It was some of the worst shit in the world because even the media will not show pictures of her and her children. A first in history. Normally everyone is fair game.
IF she found even one smiggen of strenth and felt that her mother does not have her and ALL of her childrens best interest... Then she and only she should be the one to decide how she wants to live the rest of her own days on earth, With or without her mother.

Let us not be so quick to judge.

I am also of Austrian decent and was sexually molested by my Father, no way near the scale of Elisabeth Fritzl. I am sure my Mother knew, but did not know what to do about it, so turned a blind eye, till I was old enough to put a Stop to it. There was the shame if People would find out, there was the total financial dependency of my Mother. It is high time that the People of Austria stop looking down on People when bad things happen and support the Family, so they do not have to be afraid of telling Authoreties. I knew many School Friends where the same thing happened, but also had to be quiet for the sake of the rest of the family. As long as these sort of offences are kept quiet it will go on.

One can understand the bonding of the children to the grandmother and it would be frustrating for Elisabeth who has waited eagerly for re-unification all these years.
I do believe however, that to remove the grandmother is to risk the loss of those children who had developed a bond with her. I am a little puzzled that the clinic did not seem to have been aware of this conceivable problem. As to grandmother's knowledge of the Father's exploits we on the outside simply cannot know. I hope they get their differences resolved.