A Nazi War Criminal's Last Years in Cairo
Ataba is a neighborhood in Cairo where tourists rarely go astray. This was probably precisely what made it such a perfect hiding place for the tall German man. Abd al-Hakim Duma remembers the slim, athletic man well. Everyone in the neighborhood called him "the foreigner."
Duma's father owned the Hotel Kasr al-Medina on Port Said Street. The foreigner lived in a plain room on the eighth floor, directly adjacent to the Duma family. "He often came to our apartment for lunch," Abd al-Hakim Duma recalls. After converting to Islam, the German, who spoke fluent Arabic, took the name Tarek Hussein Farid. He was like an uncle to the children, often taking them along on his walks. He cited "problems with his family" at home in Germany as the reason that he emigrated to Egypt.
But his problems were of a more existential nature. The hotel in Cairo was apparently the last refuge for Aribert Heim, who is believed to have committed atrocities and murder at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941 and had been sought by police since 1962. Last week the New York Times and Germany's ZDF television network aired some of the mysteries surrounding the former Nazi's fate. According to their accounts, Heim died of cancer in Cairo on Aug. 10, 1992, at the age of 78. Several witnesses, including Heim's son Rüdiger, and file full of documents allegedly described his life in hiding.
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Duma's father owned the Hotel Kasr al-Medina on Port Said Street. The foreigner lived in a plain room on the eighth floor, directly adjacent to the Duma family. "He often came to our apartment for lunch," Abd al-Hakim Duma recalls. After converting to Islam, the German, who spoke fluent Arabic, took the name Tarek Hussein Farid. He was like an uncle to the children, often taking them along on his walks. He cited "problems with his family" at home in Germany as the reason that he emigrated to Egypt.
But his problems were of a more existential nature. The hotel in Cairo was apparently the last refuge for Aribert Heim, who is believed to have committed atrocities and murder at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941 and had been sought by police since 1962. Last week the New York Times and Germany's ZDF television network aired some of the mysteries surrounding the former Nazi's fate. According to their accounts, Heim died of cancer in Cairo on Aug. 10, 1992, at the age of 78. Several witnesses, including Heim's son Rüdiger, and file full of documents allegedly described his life in hiding.