By Europe correspondent Greg Milam

As more and more details from the Fritzl household emerge, the people of Amstetten want the international notoriety to go away.

Last night, 500 people turned up at the town’s main square with a number of messages. There was support for the victims of Josef Fritzl, support for each other and a plea for the world’s media to leave them alone.

A banner made by the town’s schoolchildren carried messages like: “Wishing you strength on your path through life", "We're with you" and "It was hell for you, now we wish you lots of sunlight."

But there were other messages, critical of the media and of Austrian society. "Our society is built on arrogance, ignorance and selfishness," read one. "The media is reporting even though it has nothing more to report," said another.

The rally was organised show that the town is “ready to move on”. Margarete Reisinger said: "I'm here because this was one man and it now reflects on all of us. I'm proud to be from Amstetten. The name is mentioned all the time and is now being discredited. We must remember he was not a normal man."

"We in Amstetten can't help that we had such a person among us, but the whole world is watching us," added Robert Schiller.

The case has been particularly hard to take for Amstetten’s schoolchildren, many of whom knew the Fritzl’s “upstairs children”.

"It's a huge topic at the moment among the kids, they're all deeply affected," said Margit Schagerl, a teacher at the local school.

City spokesman Hermann Gruber told the crowd: "This Amstetten we see today, that's the real Amstetten."

The latest revelations in the Austrian newspapers include letters that Elisabeth Fritzl wrote a few months before she was locked up in the cellar.

She told a friend: "After the exams... I'm moving in with my sister and her boyfriend." In another she wrote: "When you get this letter, it will all be over. I'll give you my new address as soon as I've moved."

We now know that Elisabeth had already been suffering sexual abuse by her father for years.

By Greg Milam, Sky News Europe correspondent

It was only a matter of time: confirmation today that 13 photographers were arrested at the weekend trying to get a sneaky picture of Elisabeth Fritzl or one of her children.

Police say one of the snappers was dressed as a policeman, another as a cleaner.

It has been reported that photographers have also been climbing trees, dressed in a camouflage, in the hope of spotting the family at the clinic near Amstetten where they’re being treated.

The authorities looking after the family have pleaded with the media to stay away.

But doctors say the determination of some photographers to get THAT photo is having a direct impact on the family.

Elisabeth has been unable to visit her seriously ill daughter Kerstin because of the risk of being spotted.

Hospital officials say publication of a photo of Elisabeth could result in “secondary trauma”.

Members of the Austrian anti-terror unit and private security guards have now been employed to patrol the hospital.

Security guards are also on duty at the school which used to be attended by the three “upstairs children” Lisa, Monika and Alexander.

The level of international interest in the Fritzl case has certainly brought about a change in the way the Austrian media have handled the story.

While some newspapers are still refusing to use the name ‘Fritzl’ in their coverage, abiding by ancient Austrian privacy laws, others have thrown the rule book out of the window, aware that media outside Austria have gone to the town on the story.

There is also a major inquest going on about how and why details from initial police interviews with Fritzl were leaked to a German magazine.

Today, comments from Fritzl himself have been given to an Austrian newspaper by his lawyer.

The investigation and the treatment are both going to be long and delicate operations. Privacy, leaks and security are going to remain big issues.

By Greg Milam, Sky News Europe correspondent

One of the strangest things about covering the case of "Dungeon Dad" Josef Fritz has been "Rosemarie's car".

For a week, cameras from around the world have been set up in the street alongside Fritzl's house in Amstetten.

Right in the middle of them, a grey hatchback has been largely ignored.

Sky News revealed last week that the car belonged to Josef Fritzl's wife, Rosemarie.

But when local reporters started asking the police why the car hadn't been removed, either as evidence or just for privacy reasons, something strange happened.

The police told them that "it can't be Rosemarie's car, because if it was, then someone in the police would have done something about it".

To locals, this seems to sum up the kind of institutinal problems that allowed Fritzl to carry out his terrible crimes unchecked.

In effect: "He can't be involved in his daughter's disappearance, because someone would know."

The "someone else will have done it" approach isn't unique to Austria, but it doesn't reflect well on the country at the moment.

Especially when the head of government is more keen to talk about improving the image abroad.

There has been something else odd about the national response.

You would think that Austrians would have a measure of sympathy for Natascha Kampusch, victim of the last great Austrian cellar scandal.

But most people I've spoken to since she offered her support to the Fritzl children have said the same: "I just wish she would shut up."

Why? Doesn't she have a more valid opinion on this case than most people?

Maybe it draws attention to the possibility that this is an "Austrian problem".

Don't talk about it, it might all go away.

By Greg Milam, Sky News Europe correspondent

A well-respected international magazine is chasing a new line on the Josef Fritzl story: "This is Hitler's backyard," their reporter tells me.

True, one of the 20th century's most notorious figures was born an hour away from Amstetten.

But, apart from a ghoulish 'Oh, really?' factor, what's that got to do with modern day events? Everyone is trying hard to find something new to say about what Fritzl has been doing for 24 years.

Some are getting desperate: I have been interviewed by journalists from Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Slovenia and Iran (Iran??). And I'm only covering the story!

The residents of this town, squeezed between the Danube and the Alps, have had it worse. Wave after wave of media keeps on coming, hounding them down the streets. The ones with even the vaguest knowledge of the Fritzl family have realised there is money to be made out of this story.

Rumours also abound about how much news agencies will be willing to pay for that first picture of Elisabeth and her three cellar children.

Thousands of euros are being offered and authorities are desperate that that picture is never taken. They believe it would severely damage their recovery.

Security has been beefed up around the clinic where they're being treated. How long though before we're involved in a debate about the rights and wrongs of publishing THAT picture?

The Amstetten junior judo club, fully togged out in fighting gear, came down en masse to look at the Fritzl house.

Seven children and their instructor, all in white robes, stared for five minutes before wandering off.

The fascination isn't dying down in local community.

But Austrians are getting suspicious of what the world is saying about them.

Reports have reached Amstetten of newspapers, particularly in Belgium and Poland, questioning why Austria seems to have such a problem with children being locked up in cellars.

Criticism from Belgium is especially hard to take - everyone in Europe remembers the appalling mistakes in the Marc Dutroux affair.

Yes, they say here, social workers could have done more but if an evil and meticulous criminal mind is intent on such terrible acts, what can anyone do to stop him?

The bad news for local people is that the news crews are now being joined by the documentary makers and current affairs teams from across Europe.

Everyone is looking for the story behind the story, THE explanation of the worst crime this country has ever seen.

The man from the council can never have experienced quite so much worldwide interest in the details of local planning regulations.

Some won't complain: the coffee in the Fritzls' local bakery has gone up by 20 cents a cup.

But, in a story which has enough victims already, the town of Amstetten could end up being another one.

By Greg Milam, Sky News Europe correspondent

When a Japanese TV crew want to borrow your bag of rubbish for a "piece to camera", you know the media circus has fully arrived.

I still don't know what point she was trying to make with our rubbish. I don't speak Japanese.

But nothing is surprising as the world's media swarms around the Fritzl family home in Amstetten.

No-one needs to seek out sensational new leads here - the facts in this case are shocking and unbelievable enough.

But the suggestion that Josef Fritzl owned another property in the town, which also has a cellar, was enough to start a new frenzy.

What is interesting here too is how the local community is being forced to defend itself for not spotting something over all those years.

National newspapers have talked of people in Amstetten needing to look at their role in the whole affair.

They answer back: Why did those social workers who called at the Fritzl house time and time again not notice something?

Often at the scene of crimes like this, people are open and welcoming to the media, willing to talk.

But after a day or two they start to get suspicious and hostile and worry how they and their community are being portrayed.

Here, Gabriele Gattserbauer, childhood friend of Elisabeth Fritzl, would speak to Sky News but not to Austrian broadcasters. Such is the sensitivity of feelings.

What is most chilling for her is that she spent 25 years travelling the world, living in America, before coming home to settle.

"And all that time," she shudders, "Elisabeth was down there."

By Greg Milam, Sky Europe correspondent

It is the sort of notoriety normally reserved for the homes of serial killers.

For Austrians, 29 Ybbsstrasse is already guaranteed its place in criminal history.

No-one has died but what went on in - and under - the Fritzl family home in Amstetten is now the centre of a frenzy of interest.

It seems that most of the town's 30,000 residents have already made a rather ghoulish pilgrimage to the grey bunker of a house.

They watch the TV crews and the TV crews watch them, and ask what they knew of the Josef Fritzl, his wife and children.

Such is the surreal soap opera that so often plays out at the scene of such crimes.

No-one who lives here can quite grasp the horrible truth surrounding a family they've got to know over the years.

They simply stand and stare at number 29.

And, like most of us now, they wonder how and why.

"We watched the grandmother take the children to school, they looked like a normal family," they say. "And all the time those poor children were under the ground."

It is a case more horrifying because of the magnitude.

Austria is still dealing with the fall out from the Natascha Kampusch case which came to light less than two years ago.

For weeks, allegations of cock-up and cover-up filled the newspapers here.

Miss Kampusch will be back in the spotlight again now - one of the few people in the world who can tell us what Elisabeth Fritzl has been through.

This case is bigger.

As one newspaper here put it today: "We need to know what has gone very fundamentally wrong."

From Greg Milam, Sky News Europe Correspondent

The Belgian government has launched an inquiry into the correct price of a bag of ‘frites’, chips to you and me, amid claims that it’s got suspiciously high.

Belgians have been getting worried that the price of their national dish has been going up faster than the price of potatoes.

That’s “odd” says the economy ministry – as the food price crisis causes rioting and death in Africa and genuine concern around the globe.

The man from the ministry says there’ll be a "a preliminary inquiry to explain the difference between the price of potatoes and the cost of a bag of fries."

The Belgians, of course, claim to have invented chips. They are also said to be Europe’s largest per capita chip eaters. On-street ‘frituurs’ are everywhere.

So while the country has more Michelin-starred restaurants per head than France, it also has probably the world’s only chip museum.

At least, as the price goes up, they can console themselves with their two other national treasures – beer and chocolate.

But after the pasta boycott in Italy and angry protests over the price of bread in France, the Great Belgian Chip Swindle demonstrates the real face of the worldwide food crisis right on our doorstep.

From Greg Milam, Sky News Europe Correspondent

Some consolation that none of the home nations are going to Euro 2008.

The American ‘contemporary artist’ Spencer Tunick, the man who has travelled the world getting people to pose nude in large groups, is heading to Vienna.

In the run-up to the start of the tournament he wants 2008 people (geddit?) to pose naked for him in the Ernst Happel Stadium, where the final will take place.

Having once run into one of Spencer’s photo shoots, in Amsterdam one spring Sunday morning, I can confirm they are quite a shock in the flesh.

Anyone willing to take part in Spencer’s next project has even been offered free rail travel to get there. Almost makes it worthwhile.

The only worry is that it might inspire the fine figures of football-supporting manhood heading to Austria and Switzerland this summer to strip off during the tournament.

Let’s hope not.

As Spencer’s portfolio proves, he has been remarkably successful at getting people to get their kit off all over the world.

And it is all in the name of art, of course.

By Greg Milam, Sky News Europe Correspondent

To mark a week since Italy returned Silvio Berlusconi to power, a chance to watch just one of the many trademark gaffes he’s packed into seven days.

This one came in Sardinia when a Russian journalist asked visiting Vladimir Putin about his private life.

Stick with it, just for Berlusconi’s reaction.

It was reported the journalist involved didn’t find the ‘machine gun’ gag that funny.

Could Silvio be losing his touch?