John H. Noble

John H. Noble (September 4, 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

oviet 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. ["I Was a Slave in Russia", by John Noble]

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.fact|date=March 2007

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.fact|date=March 2007 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 July 1953 as a well-positioned leader. This camp and many others nearby completely took over, highlighted, according to Noble, by 400 ex-military prisoners desperately marching their way some hundreds of miles westward towards Finland before being intercepted and executed. [I Was a Slave in Russia, by John Noble] [According to Russian sources, the uprising was contained within the camps on August 1, 1953; no mass escape was ever happened.] 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 [ [http://www.washingtoninternational.com/cf/news.cfm?showpage=357 An American Survivor of the Post-war Gulag] ] 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 11 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).

ee also

* Buchenwald#Soviet Special Camp 2
* Alexander Dolgun
* Vorkuta uprising

References

* [http://www.washingtoninternational.com/cf/news.cfm?showpage=357 "Sir John Noble and Dresden, An American Survivor of the Post-war Gulag,"] Hugh S. Galford, Personality, "Washington International" (washingtoninternational.com).

External links

* [http://www.aiipowmia.com/gulag/jcsdgulag4062002.html The Gulag Study] - U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/11/16/db1601.xml Obituary, "The Daily Telegraph", 16 November 2007]
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/16/AR2007111602113.html John H. Noble; Survived, Denounced Soviet Captivity]
* [http://www.mdr.de/hier-ab-vier/promiadressen/1840870.html Sir John Noble, In German]
* [http://www.washingtoninternational.com/cf/news.cfm?showpage=357 Sir John Noble and Dresden: An American Survivor of the Post-war Gulag]