The Princess Spy:
Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan

The Germans capture Noor:  Her captivity

A.  The Prison at 84 Avenue Foch

At first, the Germans housed Noor in the cells located at 82-84 Avenue Foch in Paris.  These cells were located on the fifth floor of the building.  A couple of German officers worked with Noor during this time.  The main officer in charge of Noor's care was Ernst Vogt, codenamed by Jean Overton Fuller as 'Ernest.'  Ernest grew to greatly admire the stubborn Princess.  After the war, Ms. Fuller interviewed Vogt on an in depth basis about his knowledge regarding Noor.  Fuller's interviews became the basis for her poem book called Conversations with a Captor.  Part of one of these poems, showing the depth of Vogt's admiration of Princess Noor, appears at the end of the last page of this website.  Vogt was clearly touched by his prisoner, yet he was able to get very little information from Noor.  The other officer in charge of interrogating Noor was named Hans Kieffer.  Kieffer was even less successful than Ernest in obtaining information from Noor.  
http://websites.ntl.com/~boulder/foch1.jpg
The Paris Gestapo
84 Avenue Foch
 The Paris Gestapo
 
B.  Escape attempts

Noor made at least two escape attempts. Both attempts occurred at the prison on 84 Avenue Foch.  The first attempt was made only hours after her capture.  Noor asked to use the bathroom.  The Germans agreed and led her to a bathroom were the door would not shut all of the way.  Noor protested to her capturers.  The Germans relented and removed the obstacle blocking the door.  Noor quickly shut the door.  Ernest immediately knew what she was going to do.  He moved into a different part of the building.  At the same time, Noor blocked the door by placing a chair in front of it, opened the bathroom window, and clawed out onto the ledge.  She was now standing on a small narrow ledge five stories above the ground.  There was only one way to go to escape, so she went for it.  To escape, she had to pass by a certain window.  As she passed that window, Ernest grabbed her and pulled her back into the building.  Ernest was annoyed, but decided not to take further action against Noor.  He did install bars to cover the bathroom window.
starr.jpg
John A.R. Starr

The second escape attempt occurred later.  Several prisoners were housed at the 84 Avenue Foch prison.  One of these prisoners as a Captain John A. R. Starr.  Capt. Starr developed an ingenious way of communicating with Noor and a third prisoner.  This third prisoner was Colonel Faye from France.  Capt. Starr would write a note and leave the note in a crack in the wall in the bathroom.  In this way, the trio of prisoners began to plan an escape.  Capt. Starr was able to acquire the tool needed for the escape with some luck.  Starr overheard a maid as she explained to one of the Germans, an officer named Keiffer, that she was experiencing problems with the vacuum sweeper.  Starr approached the German and offered to fix the vacuum sweeper.  While he worked on the sweeper, he thought about which tools he should try to smuggle back to his cell.  He chose a screwdriver, but hid the tool in the fireplace until he was certain that no one would miss the object from the toolbox.  A few days later, he smuggled the screwdriver back to his cell.  From there he passed the tool to Col. Faye and Noor.  The prisoners used the screwdriver to dig out the plaster surrounding the bars which covered the windows.  Once the bars were free, the prisoners made their escape.  They escaped during the middle of the night hoping that the Germans would not discover their disappearance until the next morning.  Unfortunately, the Allies made a bombing raid minutes after the trio left their cells.  Part of the German standard procedure during an air raid included checking in on the prisoners.  Therefore the Germans knew almost immediately after their escape that the three prisoners were free.  The story of the escape becomes even more exciting once one hears about how the prisoners needed to cut up blankets to create ropes and other daring acts such as breaking into a house, just in order to reach the ground from their cells on the fifth story of the building.  Once the group reached the street, they realized another problem.  They were located on a dead end street with nowhere to go.  Germans blocked one end of the street and buildings blocked the other end.  The prisoners tried to hide, but it was of no use.  The Germans recaptured the group of fugitives soon after.    

C.  The Prison at Pforzheim, Germany

Even with this new escape attempt, the Germans were reluctant to move Noor.  Keiffer asked Noor to sign a paper stating she would not make anymore escape attempts.  She refused to sign and Keiffer was forced to make the unfortunate decision to transfer Noor to a secure prison in Germany.  She was the first female British agent sent to a prison within Germany.  Col. Faye also refused to sign and was also sent to a different prison in Germany.  Noor was sent to the prison at Pforzheim, Germany.  The prison was under the control of the Karlsruhe Gestapo, but it was run by a German citizen named Herr Wilheim Krauss.  After the war, Krauss remembered Noor clearly.  She was the first British agent sent to Pforzheim.  Krauss was given specific orders about how to treat Noor.  He was to keep her locked up in handcuffs and foot chains at all times.  She was to sit on her bed all day.  Once a week, she was allowed to leave her cell and go outside.  She was to remain in chains during the time she was away from her cell.  The cruel treatment affected Krauss.  Eventually, and in direct defiance to the orders given to him, he began to loosen up on the restrictions.  Krauss would visit Noor in her cell and would attempt to talk with her.  Communication was difficult because they did not speak each other's language, but Krauss was impressed by this British tigeress.  Noor spent nearly ten months at Pforzheim.  Prisoners in surrounding cells eventually made contact with Noor and those fellow prisoners helped lift Noor's poor spirits.  Finally, on September 11, 1944, the Karlsruhe Gestapo appeared at the prison to take Noor away to Dachau.  That was the last time Krauss saw her.  He did not learn about her fate until after the war.

D.  Dachau

http://www1.appstate.edu/~kennedyk/dachau.jpg

The Gate to Dachau:  Arbeit macht frei
Work creates freedom...

From this point, not too much is known for sure.  A few people came forward with personal experiences of seeing Noor at Dachau.  From the existing conflicting stories, the following facts may be summarized.  Noor arrived at Dachau late on the night of September 11/12, 1944.  She was placed in a temporary cell until the morning of the next day.  Once the sun rose, Germans gathered Noor and two other female British prisoners, all three were SOE agents, and led them behind a building.  There the Germans shot the prisoners in the back of their heads.  Noor was 30 years old.


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