Germans await OK on Cairo trip to check Nazi death

New information indicates Austrian-born camp doctor Aribert Heim lived in Cairo under an Arab name before his death from cancer.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
heim 224.88 (photo credit: Courtesy)
heim 224.88
(photo credit: Courtesy)
German authorities are awaiting approval from Egypt to travel to Cairo and investigate claims that a notorious Nazi doctor died there in 1992, a police spokesman said Monday. New information indicates Austrian-born concentration camp doctor Aribert Heim lived in Cairo under an Arab name before his death from intestinal cancer. Heim is accused of killing hundreds of Jews at the Mauthausen concentration camp. Horst Haug, a spokesman for the Baden-Wuerttemberg state police unit tasked with Nazi-era crimes, said investigators hope to go to Cairo by the end of this week to search for proof of Heim's death by trying to locate his corpse. Heim was supposed to have been buried in a cemetery where graves are reused after several years, which could make the task difficult. Egypt's government spokesman, Magdi Radi, said the country would be willing in principle to share any information it has with Germany, though added he did not know if authorities had yet received the request sent by Haug's office. "In such a case, it will be dealt with on the basis that a German citizen was here in Egypt," he said. "If they need information, I think, within the legal framework, we could exchange (information)."