He lived in Cairo for many years but nobody knew his true identity. He mixed with Egyptians, ate what they ate, slept where they slept and spoke like them. He converted to Islam and changed his name, in order to dissolve into Egyptian society. A Nazi in Cairo is the name of a new book written by Egyptian historian Mohamed Tharwat who tackles in his book the story of a very dangerous Nazi who hid in Egypt for about 30 years. "He was a friend to many people till his death in 1992. But all they knew about him is that he was a German who'd converted to Islam. They called him ‘el-Khawaga Tareq'," Tharwat says. Born on 28 June 1914, Aribert Ferdinand Heim was an Austrian doctor, also known as Dr Death. As an officer in the SS (a major Nazi organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party), Heim worked as a doctor in a Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen, where it is thought he tortured many inmates to death, for example by injecting toxic substances directly into their hearts. "My main focus in this book is to prove that Egypt didn't know about the existence of this Nazi in its land and that Egypt can't hide a Nazi," Tharwat stresses. "Many people warned me not to dive into this story, but I felt that it was my duty to uncover this secrets for the reader," the writer told the Egyptian Mail in an interview. Heim's grave and body have not been found. At the end of a BBC documentary, broadcast 12 September 2009, it was stated that German Police visited Cairo in 2009 but found no evidence of Heim's death. "At the time of Egypt's late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser, entering Egypt was very easy. That's why many foreigners came to Egypt and lived here. Of course, Heim entered Egypt with false documents and under an assumed name," Tharwat adds. Heim, the son of a policeman, was born in Bad Radkersburg, in Austria-Hungary. He was the son of a policeman. He studied medicine in Graz and then obtained his doctorate in Vienna, before volunteering for the Waffen-SS in the spring of 1940, rising to the rank of Hauptsturmführer (Captain). In October 1941, Heim was sent into the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, where he performed medical experiments on prisoners. He was later sent to an SS field hospital in Vienna. It was at Mauthausen that the prisoners dubbed Heim ‘Dr Death'. It took a long time from Tharwat to gather all the information about Heim. "I met his son Rüdiger and he gave me his father's documents. I also met the family of Doma [the family that hosted him during his short stay in Alexandria] they also gave me some information. "I also met with Ramzi Ezz Eddin, the Egyptian Ambassador in Germany and Bernd Erbel, the ex-Ambassador of Germany in Egypt, and they provided me with information," the writer says. For about two months (October to December 1941), Heim was stationed at the camp called Ebensee near Linz, Austria, where he carried out experiments on Jews similar to those performed at Auschwitz by Josef Mengele. Jewish prisoners were poisoned with various injections directly into the heart ��" including petrol, water, phenol and poisons ��" to induce death more quickly. From February 1942, Heim served in the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord in northern Finland, especially in Oulu's hospitals as an SS doctor. His service continued until at least October 1942. On 15 March, 1945 Heim was captured by US soldiers and sent to a camp for prisoners of war. He was released and worked as a gynaecologist in Baden, in the southwest of Germany, until his disappearance in 1962. Having been questioned on previous occasions, he surmised the reason for the questioning (an international warrant for his arrest had been in place since that date) and went into hiding. "He drove through France and Spain onward to Morocco, moving finally to Egypt via Libya. After Alois Brunner [Adolf Eichmann's top assistant], Heim had been the second most wanted Nazi officer. "I have included some excerpts from his diaries in my book, which I've written in a narrative way. The book starts with his childhood and I also mention the affair he had with a married Egyptian woman, who hid him in Alexandria. "He said in his diaries that he didn't like to be photographed, but he himself liked taking photos of nature and the places around him," Tharwat explains. In 2006, a German newspaper reported that he had a daughter, living on the outskirts of Puerto Montt, Chile. However, when she tried to recover a million-dollar inheritance from an account in his name, she was unable to provide a death certificate. After years of apparently false sightings, the circumstances of Heim's escape, life in hiding and death were jointly reported by the German broadcaster ZDF and the New York Times in February 2009. They reported that he lived under a false name, Tareq Hussein Farid, in Egypt and that he died of intestinal cancer in Cairo in 1992. "The ambiguity behind that man is what aroused my curiosity to write a book about him," the author mentions. Heim settled in Cairo in 1962, where he converted to Islam. In the years since his disappearance, Heim was the target of a rapidly escalating manhunt and ever-increasing rewards for his capture. Following his escape, there were reported sightings in Latin America, Spain and Africa, as well as formal investigations aimed at bringing him to justice, some of which took place even after he had apparently died in Egypt. The German Government offered $500,000 for information leading to his arrest, while the Simon Wiesenthal Centre launched Operation Last Chance, a project to assist governments in the location and arrest of suspected Nazi war criminals who are still alive. Tax records prove that as late as 2001 Heim's lawyer asked the German authorities to refund capital gains taxes levied on him because he was living abroad. The 172-page Arabic book A Nazi in Cairo contains rare photos and documents. The book, published by Madbouli publishing house in Cairo, costs LE25.
