Delmarva Today 6-25-21

Harold Wilson’s guest is Arthur Magida. He’s discussing his Pulitzer Prize nominated book in the biography/memoir category Code Name Madeleine: A Sufi Spy in Nazi Occupied Paris. Arthur Magida was on the program about a year ago to discuss his book and now that the paperback version is out he’s back to talk about the book and the trajectory it has taken over the past year.

Code Name Madeleine is the story of Noor Inayat Khan, a delicate young woman who became a spy for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in Paris during the Nazi occupation. She was raised by her father Inayat Khan, a Sufi teacher and lecturer whose central belief was, “True religion is the sea of truth.” At the same time, lying was a spy’s stock and trade. Magida says that “Without deceit and guile, an agent was a dud. Probably a dead dud.” In addition to how Noor carried out her secret broadcast work to London for the SOE, how she remained true to her Sufi sense of truth in the dangerous, and deceitful world of Nazi occupied Paris is fascinating in itself.

Most wireless operators didn’t last more than six weeks in Europe. Noor carried her 30 pound radio wherever she went and broadcast from whatever location in or near Paris she could find for more than four months. In that time the value of her transmissions was incalculable, and this includes for the landing at Normandy.

The Germans wanted her desperately and finally as the result of a betrayal she was captured. Just before the end of the war she was killed at Dachau along with three other women. 

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