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Dublin: 5 °C Saturday 25 May, 2013

Nastassja Kinski ‘proud’ of sister for revealing sex abuse

The German actress has come out in support of her sister, who has revealed she was sexually abused throughout her childhood – saying she hopes it will encourage others to seek help.

Nastassja Kinski poses at the 46th International Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France
Nastassja Kinski poses at the 46th International Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France
Image: AP Photo/Gilbert Tourte

ACTRESS NASTASSJA KINSKI said Friday she was proud of her half-sister Pola for coming forward with allegations that she had been repeatedly raped by their father, the late German film icon Klaus Kinski.

Pola Kinski, 60, said in a magazine interview ahead of the release of a memoir Saturday that the mercurial actor, who died in 1991, had sexually abused her throughout her childhood.

Nastassja Kinski, who achieved the Hollywood fame with films such as “Cat People” and “Tess” that eluded her father, wrote in the German daily Bild that she had wept when she read Pola’s account.

“My sister is a hero because she has freed her heart, her soul and thus her future from the burden of this secret,” the 51-year-old wrote.

“I stand by my sister, I stand behind her. I am deeply horrified. But I am proud of the strength she has shown in writing this book.”

Nastassja Kinski said she hoped the book would raise awareness of child abuse and encourage other victims to tell their stories.

“A book like Pola’s helps all children, youths and mothers who are afraid of fathers, who swallow their fear and hide everything away in their souls,” she said.

“Just because someone calls himself a father, as in this case, does not mean that he is a father. The horror has taken place nevertheless. Even fathers do horrible things.”

She added: “There is always help – all children should know that.”

Nastassja Kinski, who lives in California, is the daughter of Kinski’s second wife Brigitte. Pola’s mother was his first wife, singer Gislinde Kuehbeck.

Pola said Klaus Kinski, who was already notorious as a brilliant but tyrannical force in European cinema, began abusing her at the age of five and raped her for the first time when she was nine.

The assaults continued until she was 19, she alleged in an interview this week with Stern magazine.

The volatile but prolific star of “Fitzcarraldo” and “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and a frequent collaborator of German director Werner Herzog “ignored all protests” by his young daughter, she charged.

“He just took what he wanted,” she said, adding that as a youngster, she lived in constant fear of his angry outbursts.

She said she aimed to go public with her allegations to put a stop to the idolising of her famous father.

“I was sick of hearing, ‘Your father! Great! Genius! I always liked him’,” she said. “Since his death, this adulation has only got worse.”

- © AFP, 2012

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Comments (6 Comments)

  • Full marks for thejournal.ie for supporting woman (and man) who are able to speak about childhood abuse and hope that it stops for ever.

    Journalism at it’s best!

    Reply
  • Very sad. A great actor – Klaus Kinski – now gets what he deserves, ignominy. I’ll never see his films in the same way again – in fact, I won’t see them at all. Tragic that his child had to endure such treatment.
    Meanwhile there is a Polanski season at the IFI. Confusing.

    Reply
  • Sometimes the work is totally affected, sometimes less so. I’ll still admire Caravaggio, although he was probably a murderer, and Degas’ output, though regretting that he was apparently an antisemite (along with most of Europe, of course). The problem with Kinski is his demeanour on film, his intensity and overpowering stare. I wouldn’t be able to see that without picturing his child on the receiving end.
    Or did you mean Polanski?

    Reply
  • There’s also a disturbing footnote to this. Nastassja Kinski starred in Polanski’s Tess, presumably with Klaus’ approval. She was at most 18 at the time, probably younger. In Tess, “To this end, he sends his daughter Tess to seek employment with a family named d’Urberville living in a nearby manor house. Alec d’Urberville is delighted to meet his beautiful “cousin”, and he tries to seduce her with strawberries and roses. … Alec falls in love with Tess, eventually rapes her, and she leaves, pregnant; back at home, the baby is born sickly and dies.”(Wikipedia)
    Sometimes it is very hard to keep life and art separate.

    Reply
  • (That was in response to Waffler Towers; landed in the wrong place.)

    Reply

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