Nazis in Cairo?

We have all seen Indiana Jones fighting the Nazis in Egypt, but I wasn't aware that Rommel broke through the defensive lines at El Alemein and took Cairo and Alexandria. So I was a little perplexed by this statement in the Mail (and repeated elsewhere but offline in the Telegraph),

Miss Williams, whose parents fled to Britain from Egypt to escape the Nazis,

If her family did come from Egypt during the war, and I am sure they did, then what were they running away from? The journey must have been fraught with danger, and I cannot believe that they were given passge on a troop ship through the death alley that was the Medditereanean.

I mean nothing by this, I am just perplexed as to how such a trip could be made.