Go to Chapter 6
Noor Inayat-Khan
A Woman of Conspicuous Courage
Betrayal, capture and imprisonment
Noor never made it home. Just as she was preparing to leave Paris, she was betrayed. On 13 October Noor returned to her flat to find an officer waiting for her. After putting up a fierce physical and verbal fight, she was overpowered and arrested.
“She glared at me as if she was a caged tiger, but she wouldn’t speak.”
A Gestapo officer recalling Noor’s first interrogation
Gestapo headquarters, Paris
Noor immediately tried to escape by climbing out of a bathroom window, but she was discovered.
She angrily refused to answer any questions, although interrogated repeatedly.
She tried to escape again: tapping Morse messages on her cell wall she communicated with two other prisoners about breaking out. The three of them managed to loosen the bars on their skylight windows and climb out. As they raced across the roof an air-raid siren sounded and guards found they were missing from their cells. They were caught and beaten.
Solitary confinement in Germany
The next day, 26 November 1943, Noor was sent to Pforzheim prison in Germany. Classed as a ‘dangerous’ prisoner – perhaps because of her escape attempts, or because she hadn’t told them any information – she was kept in constant isolation, shackled by her hands and feet. Hungry and alone, she meditated and her Sufi beliefs kept her going.
‘Nacht und Nebel’ (night and fog) refers to a general order permitting Nazi authorities to ‘disappear’ resistance fighters and agents like Noor without a trace.
Noor was able to communicate with fellow prisoners through messages scratched onto the underside of their metal food bowls. She must have been heartened when she heard the Allies had invaded France in June 1944 - surely the war, and her captivity, would be over soon.