To Nazi hunters, Aribert Heim is the most coveted target still at large. The
German and Austrian governments, as well as the Simon Wiesenthal
Center, all believe that the so-called Butcher of Mauthausen
is alive, and they are offering $430,000 for information
on him. They periodically send investigators around the
world to find him, most recently to Chile.
The murder of roughly 200 Jews in the night of March 24-25,
1945, in the eastern Austrian village of There is just
one small problem: Heim is now said to be dead, executed
in 1982 in California by a secretive cell of Jewish avengers.
So, at least, says Danny Baz, a retired Israeli air force colonel who claims
he was a member of The Owl, a covert Jewish death squad
made up of former American and Israeli military and intelligence
officials. Baz claims that the group spent years tracking
down and killing Nazis who fled to the Western Hemisphere
after World War II.
Baz’s sensational allegations
appear in “Not Forgotten or Forgiven: On the Trail of the
Last Nazi,” a memoir released last month by mainstream
publisher Grasset in France, where it received broad media
coverage.
Baz has been fiercely condemned
by the Wiesenthal Center and other Nazi hunters since the
book appeared in mid-October. The American government backs
the critics.
“This is a bunch of baloney,”
said Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Nazi-hunting Office
of Special Investigations at the U.S. Justice Department.
“What is true is that there is a real person who calls
himself Danny Baz and is trying to make some money with
this book at the expense of the truth.”
Baz and his publisher turned down
requests for an interview or comment. Aline Gurdiel, a
Grasset spokeswoman, said Baz granted interviews only in
France when the book was launched and that he would not
comment by phone or e-mail.
The Austrian-born Heim, who would
be 93 today, is known for carrying out grotesque medical
experiments on inmates of the Mauthausen camp in 1941,
including the removal of human organs, with no use of an
anesthetic, to see how long victims lived. After World
War II, he spent two years in prison before resuming work
as a physician in the German city of Baden-Baden.
Following the capture of Adolf
Eichmann in Argentina in 1962, Western countries boosted
efforts to find Nazis around the world. In Germany, Heim
disappeared just before he was to be arrested in 1962.
Sightings have been reported over the years in Egypt, Uruguay
and Spain. Chilean media reported this summer that German
investigators had come there and questioned his family.
Baz’s book, which he wrote with
investigative reporter Fabrizio Calvi, claims that Heim
was in fact executed in California after first being located
by The Owl in 1980 in the Catskills region near New York,
where he could count on a small cadre of loyalists and
on wealth he reportedly spirited out of the Third Reich.
Baz writes that The Owl was created
by a former concentration camp prisoner identified as “Barney,”
who later became a wealthy oil magnate. “Barney” allegedly
survived a Heim torture session and dedicated an “unlimited”
budget to eliminating Nazis. The Owl also received support
from higher-ups in the CIA, the FBI and Israeli intelligence,
Baz claims. The organization purportedly folded after eliminating
Heim and his aides.
The book reads like a James Bond
novel, with brave Jewish heroes fighting nasty, heavily
armed Nazis. It includes wild chases by boat, helicopter
and airplane, cutting-edge technology and even a small
love affair. The 18-month chase ranged from the Catskills
to Alaska to Canada, where “Doctor Death” was allegedly
snatched from a hospital and shipped to Santa Catalina
Island in California for “trial” and execution in 1982.
There is no evidence in the book
to support the allegation — Baz claims he doesn’t even
know where the body is buried — and only three people are
identified, two of them deceased. One is Ted Arison, the
Israeli-born billionaire founder of Carnival Cruise Lines
and of the Miami Heat basketball franchise, who died in
1999. Baz claims that Arison introduced him to the group
in New York in 1980. Arisons’s son, Mickey Arison, speaking
through a representative, called the allegations “completely
untrue.”
Another character is former Mossad
chief Isser Harel, who purportedly confirmed to Baz that
Heim was hiding in the United States. Harel died in 2003.
To the Justice Department’s Rosenbaum, this alone is evidence
that the book is fictional, “with ‘movie’ written all over
it.”
“I knew Isser Harel quite well,”
Rosenbaum said, “and I can tell you that he would have
told us immediately if Heim was in the U.S, where there
is an outstanding warrant against him.” There is no indication
that Heim ever set foot on American soil, he added.
The only character still alive
is Israeli writer Naomi Frankel. She could not be reached
for comment.
Heim is number two on the Simon
Wiesenthal Center’s list of targets under “Operation Last
Chance,” a effort to track down Nazi criminals. Number
one is Alois Brunner, who is believed to be in Syria, though
many experts think he is dead. A prize totaling 310,000
euros ($434,000) is offered for information leading to
Heim’s arrest, including 130,000 euros from the Wiesenthal
Center.
Efraim Zuroff, the Wiesenthal
Center’s Israel director, dismissed Baz’s claims as “pure
fantasy,” but said that they could, in the end, help stir
up new leads. Zuroff added that he had “good reasons” to
believe that Heim is alive and probably in Spain or Latin
America.
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