The German government should examine how a wanted Nazi was able to live for decades
in Egypt without being captured or even arousing the suspicion
of authorities, said the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center demanded Wednesday, Feb. 11, that the German Foreign
Ministry "fully investigate the failure of its representatives" to report the whereabouts in Egypt of wanted Nazi war criminal Aribert Heim "and thereby facilitate his capture."
A statement released by the
center's Jerusalem office said findings by The New York
Times and German public broadcaster ZDF proved that Heim,
known as "Dr. Death," submitted an application to extend his stay in Egypt in 1981.
"It is clear that
representatives of the German Embassy in Cairo most likely
were aware of the Nazi war criminal's residence in Egypt
as early as that year, but apparently failed to report
this fact to the German judicial authorities, despite
the existing arrest warrant for Heim's arrest," the statement said.
The New York Times and ZDF
reported earlier this month that Heim died of cancer
in Cairo on Aug. 10, 1992.
A spokesman for the German
Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday Berlin was taking
the issue "very seriously" and that there would be a "thorough investigation."
Released after WWII
An SS doctor in the Nazi concentration camp of Mauthausen,
Heim was accused of killing and torturing hundreds of
inmates by various methods, including lethal injections
directly into the hearts of his victims.
At the end of World War II,
Heim was arrested and later released by the US military.
He took up a relatively normal lifestyle as a practicing
gynecologist in spa town of Baden-Baden before disappearing
shortly before West German police were to arrest him
in 1962.
The Wiesenthal Center had
placed him at the top of its list of wanted Nazi war
criminals still at large.
What did the Cairo embassy
know?
The center's Israel director,
Efraim Zuroff, called Wednesday for "a thorough investigation by the German Foreign Ministry into the role of its
Cairo embassy during the more than three decades that
Heim apparently lived in Egypt, along with numerous other
Nazi war criminals who were never brought to justice."
"
One of the points that was clearly proven in the NYT
and ZDF report was that Heim definitely lived in the
Egyptian capital for a fairly lengthy period and thus
there is a high likelihood that officials of the local
German embassy might have been well-aware of his whereabouts," Zuroff
was quoted as saying in the Wiesenthal Center statement.
"This should be
an important element of a serious investigation of the
failure of German officials to capture Heim as well as
numerous other Nazi war criminals who found refuge in
Egypt after World War II," he continued.
Immediately after the media
reports, the center said there was no evidence to prove
Heim had in fact died since "we have no body, no DNA, no grave."
Finding his remains is likely
to be complicated. Last week's reports said his body
was buried in a communal grave where many other corpses
will have also been disposed of in the intervening 17
years. dw-world.de
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