How liberating and at the same time how depressing that must have been: the eight-year-old girl from Attendorn is said to have been overwhelmed and relieved when she was able to leave her grandparents' house in Attendorn, Sauerland, for the first time on September 23.

The child told the doctors that it had never seen a meadow or a forest or sat in a car before.

For almost seven years, it is said to have been completely isolated from the outside world by its mother and grandparents.

How can it be that neighbors and authorities have never noticed anything in all these years?

What did the isolation do to the child?

What was the motive of mother and grandparents?

These are the most important questions since the case was made public by the girl's father on Saturday.

The public prosecutor's office in Siegen is still at the beginning of its investigation after almost two months.

The child's mother and grandparents refuse to testify.

Pure burger

Political correspondent in North Rhine-Westphalia.

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The authorities found no evidence of physical abuse or malnutrition.

And although the girl was not allowed to go to kindergarten or school, she learned to read and do arithmetic.

But the girl was denied any social contact outside the four walls of her grandparents, which is why the public prosecutor's office is investigating Siegen against the three relatives for deprivation of liberty and mistreatment of wards.

"But we also involve the authority responsible for the child, the Olpe district youth welfare office, to check whether all the information has been followed up there to the necessary extent," says senior public prosecutor Patrick Baron von Grotthuss of the FAZ. The question arises whether the child could not have been found sooner.

At the end of 2015, the mother had tried in vain at the family court to get sole custody of the girl.

Since then, she seems to have managed to deceive the authorities - who is also said to have hardly or not left her parents' house.

As reported by the Olpe district, an entry from the registration office shows that the woman and her daughter moved to Calabria in the summer of 2015.

For the authorities, the case was also closed because, according to current knowledge, the father did not try to fight for his right of access.

Only two years ago and one year ago, the youth welfare office received two anonymous tips that the child was still living in Attendorn.

The office followed up on both tips, according to its own statements, but the grandparents are said to have credibly assured each time that

that her daughter and granddaughter lived in Italy.

There was no legal basis for entering the house at the time.

The lie only came to light when a couple from the family's environment searched in vain for the two during a visit to Italy in the summer.

The couple also told German authorities about friends who were sure the child was being held captive at the grandparents' home.

After requesting administrative assistance from the Federal Office of Justice, the Italian authorities informed the youth welfare office in Olpe on September 12 that the mother never settled in Italy.

On September 23, the family court ordered the youth welfare office to act as supplementary carer, and shortly thereafter the police and youth welfare office searched the grandparents' house.