BOOKS
I WAS TOLD TO COME ALONE
In this compelling and evocative memoir, we accompany Mekhennet as she journeys behind the lines of jihad, starting in the German neighborhoods where the 9/11 plotters were radicalized. and the Iraqi neighborhoods where Sunnis and Shia turned against one another, and culminating on the Turkish/Syrian border region where ISIS is a daily presence.
Mekhennet’s background has given her unique access to some of the world’s most wanted men. She is not afraid to face personal danger to reach out to individuals in the inner circles of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, and their affiliates.
Souad Mekhennet is an ideal guide to introduce us to the human beings behind the ominous headlines, as she shares her transformative journey with us. Hers is a story you will not soon forget.
THE ETERNAL NAZI: From Mauthausen to Cairo, the Relentless Pursuit of SS Doctor Aribert Heim
The tall foreigner living on Port Said Street in a Cairo hotel lived a simple life, reading books and writing letters, known as Uncle Tarek to neighborhood children. They did not know that he was actually Aribert Heim—the concentration camp doctor and fugitive from justice who became the most wanted Nazi war criminal in the world.
Dr. Aribert Heim worked at the Mauthausen concentration camp for only a few months in 1941 but left a horrifying mark on the memories of survivors. In the chaos of the postwar period, Heim was able to slip away from his dark past. But certain rare individuals in Germany were unwilling to let Nazi war criminals go unpunished. Among them was a police investigator named Alfred Aedtner, whose quest took him across Europe and across decades, and into a close alliance with legendary Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. This is the incredible story of how Aribert Heim evaded capture, living in a working-class neighborhood of the Egyptian capital, praying in Arabic, beloved by an adopted Muslim family, while inspiring a manhunt that outlived him by many years. He became the “Eternal Nazi,” a symbol of Germany’s evolving attitude toward the sins of its past, which finally crested in a desire to see justice done at almost any cost.
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