She looks like a freezing sparrow fledgling, but don't believe that's what she was in her life. When it came to fighting for a honourable cause she grew into something more like a tigress showing real bravery. Her birth name was Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944) and she was a Muslim princess from India, but in the annals of history she is known by her code name "Madeline" or "Nora Baker". These names she used in WWII when she partook in the fight against Nazis as a very clever and brave British spy.
Noor and her younger brother Vilayat with their father Inayat Khan.
The Germans knew her only as "Nora Baker", a British woman who had gone into occupied France, using the code name of "Madeline". Her skill in carrying her transmitter from safe house to safe house while being trailed by the Gestapo was of great value to her Resistance unit. It's awful to think of the life expectancy of wireless operators like "Madeline" only being six weeks. However, "Madeline", being the last survivor of these immensely brave wireless operators who worked an active link between London and Paris, kept out of the claws of the Nazis for three times as long. At some point she said that she "was having the time of her life", but, as was to be expected, she ended up being caught by the Nazis.
After being captured she made three attempts to flee that showed bravery and intelligence, but in 1944 she was tortured and shot in the Dachau concentration camp. Her last word before being executed was, "Liberté!" Presumably she had been offered some kind of deal to flee, but refused.
Noor was a clever musician as well as a writer of children's books. As a person she was a convinced pacifist, but chose to fight what she saw as a cruel and inhuman war. There is no doubt that she was a genuine heroine, but - as we know as it happens all too often - her contribution to the fight against the Nazi regime was forgotten. However, in 2006 Shrabani Basu brought her life to light with the biography "Spy Princess". That opened the eyes of may people who understood that she was a quite extraordinary person and should be honoured as such.
Here the author of Noor's biography, Shrabani Basu, is seen with the British princess Anne, unveiling the Noor Inayat Khan statue in 2012. Also there has been issued a special stamp in her honor. The British also gave her The Blue Plaque just as the French awarded her with a posthumous Croix de Guerre. Recently there has been made a movie over her life so one might say that she has gone from being more or less forgotten to shine as a heroic star.
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