Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan (Madeleine), George Cross, M.B.E., Croix de Guerre with Gold Star

Book excerpt: Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan was a gentle girl, the great-great-great grand-daughter of the Tiger of Mysore, and the daughter of the Sufi teacher Inayat Khan, who founded the Sufi movement and Sufi Order in the West. When war broke out, in 1939, she was already achieving her first successes, As a harpist she had been heard at the Salle Erard. Her stories were appearing on the children's page of 'Le Figaro' and broadcast on Radiodiffusion Francaise, her 'Twenty Jataka Tales' being brought out by a London publisher; she was just founding a children's newspaper. Later she was betrayed to the Sicherheitsdienst and as a prisoner of importance was held at their HQ on the Avenue Foch. After a daring attempt to escape, via the roof, she refused to give parole and was sent to Germany, where she was kept for most of the time in chains, before being shot at Dachau. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Crois de Guerre.