John H. Noble
Encyclopedia
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
system, who wrote two books relating to his experiences after being permitted to leave the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and return to his native United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Early life
Noble had been born in Detroit, MichiganDetroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
. His father, born in Germany, came to the US as a Seventh Day Adventist missionary in 1922. Finding contradictions in church teachings, he eventually left the church. His mother, a photographer, worked in a photo-finishing company in Detroit and then his father became the owner of this company. The Nobles eventually built the company to become one of the top ten photo-finishing companies in the US. His father an acquaintance of a German camera manufacturer, who wanted to emigrate to the USA and offered to trade his camera factory in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
for the Nobles’ company. The Nobles turned the German company, the Praktica, into a major international brand, employing 600 workers at the business’ peak.
The Nobles stayed in Germany during World War II and survived the bombing of Dresden.
Soviet Special Prison
In late 1945, 22-year-old American-born Noble was arrested together with his father by Soviet occupation forces in Dresden, Germany and incarcerated in a former German concentration camp that was then under Soviet control. The arrest came about after a newly appointed local Soviet commissar decided to appropriate the Noble family's Practica brand Kamera-Werkstaetten Guthe & Thorsch factory and its stocks of quality cameras. A trumped-up allegation of spying against the Soviets was levelled against the two male members of the family. However, subsequently, the commissar did not provide sufficient numbers of the cameras to his superiors, and he also found himself a fellow prisoner. The concentration camp was the former Buchenwald, now renamed Soviet Special PrisonNKVD special camps
NKVD special camps were NKVD-run late and post-World War II internment camps in the Soviet-occupied parts of Germany and areas east of the Oder-Neisse line. The short-lived camps east of the line were subsequently transferred to the Soviet occupation zone, where they were set up by the Soviet...
Number 2. Noble apparently became indispensable while assigned prison duties as a secretary and became privy to the general operating procedures of the Soviet prison system in East Germany.
Unlike his father Charles A. Noble, who was released in 1952, John was sentenced to a further 15 years in 1950 and transferred to the Soviet Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
system, when Special Prison Number 2 was closed by the Soviets in early 1950.
Vorkuta
During his transfer through Russia he saw the English phrase scrawled on a cell wall reading "I am sick and don't expect to live through this - Major Roberts". The inscription was dated in mid-August 1950 and believed to have been written by the American soldier Major Frank A Roberts who is recorded as Missing in Action during World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Soon afterwards, Noble's journey continued and he was sent to the coal mining complex of Vorkuta
Vorkuta
Vorkuta is a coal-mining town in the Komi Republic, Russia, situated just north of the Arctic Circle in the Pechora coal basin at the Usa River. Population: - Labor camp origins :...
, at the northernmost Urals railhead.
Filling a variety of menial jobs during his imprisonment, the highest being a uniformed lavatory attendant for the staff, he took part in the Vorkuta uprising
Vorkuta Uprising
The Vorkuta Uprising was a major uprising of the concentration camp inmates at the Vorkuta Gulag in Vorkuta, Russia in July–August 1953, shortly after the arrest of Lavrentiy Beria. The uprising was violently stopped by the camp administration after two weeks of bloodless standoff.Vorkuta Rechlag ...
of July 1953 as a prominent leader. According to Noble the Vorkuta camp and many others nearby had been previously taken over by the inmates, including 400 purged Soviet ex-World War II military men who opted to desperately march their way several hundred miles west to Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
. Apparently making it half way en route, those inmates were intercepted and either killed in battle or executed immediately afterwards. All the camps soon returned to state control.
Noble eventually managed to smuggle out a postcard loosely glued to the back of another prisoner's. The message addressed to a relative in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
was passed to his family, who by then had returned to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The postcard was passed to the U.S. State Department who formally requested the Soviet government to release Noble. He was finally released in 1955, together with several American military captives, after the personal intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
.
Later life
By the mid-1990s, Noble was again residing in Dresden, Germany, where he had originally been taken prisoner 50 years earlier. The factory, but not the trademark, had been restored to family ownership. He died on November 10, 2007 after a heart attack.Noble wrote the following three 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).
- Verbannt und Verleugnet (Banished and Vanished), by John H. Noble (Ranger Publishing House, 2005).
See also
- Buchenwald#Soviet Special Camp 2
- Alexander DolgunAlexander DolgunAlexander Dolgun was a survivor of the Soviet Gulag who wrote about his experiences in 1975 after being allowed to leave the Soviet Union and return to his native United States.- Pre-Gulag years :...
- Vorkuta uprisingVorkuta UprisingThe Vorkuta Uprising was a major uprising of the concentration camp inmates at the Vorkuta Gulag in Vorkuta, Russia in July–August 1953, shortly after the arrest of Lavrentiy Beria. The uprising was violently stopped by the camp administration after two weeks of bloodless standoff.Vorkuta Rechlag ...
- Thomas SgovioThomas SgovioThomas Sgovio was an American artist, ex-Communist, and former inmate of a Soviet Union GULAG camp in Kolyma...
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
- John H. Noble
- Noble: Although Never Charged With any Crime, He Was Kept on a Starvation Diet for Seven Months
- Sir
[sic John Noble and Dresden, An American Survivor of the Post-war Gulag], Hugh S. Galford, Personality, Washington International (washingtoninternational.com) - I Was a Slave in Russia: An American Tells His Story Archive.org online ebook.