John H. Noble

John H. Noble (1923 – November 10, 2007) was a survivor of the Soviet Gulag who wrote about his experiences in two books after being allowed to leave the Soviet Union and return to his native United States. He was born in Detroit, Michigan.

Imprisonment

Soviet Special Prison

In late 1945, 23 year old American born Noble was taken by Soviet forces in Dresden, Germany and put into prison with his father.

Apparently, a local commissar wanted the family's Practica brand Kamera-Werkstaetten Guthe & Thorsch factory reserve of cameras, and a trumped-up crime of spying was charged against the two male members of the family. ^[1]

The commissar did not pay enough of the cameras to his superiors, and so later became a fellow prisoner. This was the Soviet Special Prison, formerly Buchenwald, where Noble reportably became indispensable while assigned prison duties as a secretary and privy to general operating procedure of the Soviet East Germany prison system.^{[citation needed]}

Unlike father Charles A. Noble, released in 1952, in 1950 John was sentenced to 15 years and transferred to the Soviet Gulag system when the Special Prison was closed in early 1950.

Vorkuta

At a Russian midshipment point, he saw the English letters "I am sick and don't expect to live through this...." "Major Roberts" and followed by a date in mid-August 1950, with a Major Frank A. Roberts being a World War II MIA.^{[citation needed]} Soon afterwards, Noble was sent to the coal mining complex of Vorkuta, at the northernmost Urals railhead.

Filling a variety of jobs, the highest being a uniformed lavatory attendant for the staff, he claims to have taken part in the Vorkuta uprising of 1954 as a well-positioned leader. The uprising took place in the relaxed situation immediately after Stalin's death. This camp and many others nearby completely took over, highlighted by 400 ex-military prisoners desperately marching their way some hundred of miles westward towards Finland before being intercepted and executed.^[2] All the camps soon returned to moderated state rule.

Sending a postcard loosely glued to the back of another prisoner's, a message to a relative in West Germany notified his family, then returned to living in the United States. The postcard was given to the U.S. State Department to formally request John Noble's return. He was released in 1955 at the personal intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower ^[3] along with several American military captives

Later life

As of the mid-1990s, Noble was residing in Dresden, Germany, where he had been taken prisoner 50 years earlier. The factory, but not the trademark, has been returned to family ownership. He died on November 11th, 2007 due to heart attack.

Noble wrote the following two books about his ordeal:

I Found God in Soviet Russia, by John Noble and Glenn D Everett (1959) (Hardcover).
I Was a Slave in Russia, by John Noble (Broadview, Illinois: Cicero Bible Press, 1961).

References

^ I Was a Slave in Russia, by John Noble
^ I Was a Slave in Russia, by John Noble
^ An American Survivor of the Post-war Gulag

"Sir John Noble and Dresden, An American Survivor of the Post-war Gulag," Hugh S. Galford, Personality, Washington International (washingtoninternational.com).

External links

The Gulag Study - U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs
Obituary, The Daily Telegraph, 16 November 2007
John H. Noble; Survived, Denounced Soviet Captivity

[1] I Was a Slave in Russia, by John Noble

[2] I Was a Slave in Russia, by John Noble

[3] An American Survivor of the Post-war Gulag

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