John Noble ( eng. John H. Noble , September 4, 1923 - November 10, 2007 ) is a U.S. citizen who survived in the Gulag . After he was allowed to leave the USSR and return to his homeland in the USA , he wrote two books about what happened to him in the Gulag .
| John noble | |
|---|---|
| John H. Noble | |
 John Noble delivers a speech in Nossen , Germany | |
| Date of Birth | September 4, 1923 |
| Place of Birth | Detroit , USA |
| Date of death | November 10, 2007 (84 years old) |
| A place of death | Dresden , Germany |
| Citizenship |  USA |
| Occupation | , , , |
| Father | Charles Noble |
Content
- 1 Childhood and adolescence
- 2 imprisonment
- 2.1 Special Soviet Prison
- 2.2 Vorkuta
- 3 Further life
- 4 See also
- 5 notes
- 6 References
Childhood and Youth
Noble was born in Detroit , Michigan . His father, Charles Noble, was born in Germany and came to the United States as a missionary for the Seventh-day Adventist Church . Finding contradictions in the teaching of the church, he eventually left this church. His mother worked as a photographer in Detroit in one of the camera companies, and then his father became the owner of this company. The Noblov company eventually entered the top ten largest camera companies in the United States. His father met with a camera manufacturer from Germany who wanted to emigrate to the United States, and he offered to sell his camera factory in Dresden to the Noblov company. Nobles turned this German company, Pentacon , into one of the leading international brands with up to 600 employees.
Nobles remained in Germany until the end of World War II and survived the bombing of Dresden .
Imprisonment
Special Soviet Prison
At the end of 1945, the 22-year-old Noble was arrested with his father by the Soviet occupation forces in Dresden and imprisoned in the former German concentration camp Buchenwald , renamed "Special Camp No. 2" [1] . The arrest followed shortly after the newly appointed local commissioner decided to appropriate the Noble family factory Praktica and its warehouses with produce. Trumped-up charges of espionage against the USSR were presented to father and son [2] . However, later this commissioner did not share cameras with his superiors and also ended up in prison.
Unlike his father, who was released in 1952 , John was sentenced to another 15 years in 1950 and transferred to the Soviet authorities after the closure of Special Camp No. 2 in early 1950 .
Vorkuta
During his escort across Russia, he saw the phrase in English, “I am sick and don't expect to live through this - Major Roberts” (Major Roberts). This inscription was dated mid-August 1950 and was allegedly written by an American soldier, Major Frank Roberts, who was reported missing in World War II. Soon after, John's journey continued, and he was sent to mine coal in Vorkuta, the northernmost railway station in the Urals . Engaged in various kinds of dirty work during his imprisonment, the highest of which was cleaning the toilet for the colony staff, he took part in the Vorkuta uprising in July 1953 . According to Noble, the camp in Vorkuta and many others nearby were also previously captured by prisoners, including 400 former participants of the Great Patriotic War , who decided on a desperate march several hundred kilometers west to Finland . Subsequently, having made halfway along this route, these prisoners were intercepted and either killed in battle or executed immediately after it [2] . Subsequently, Noble managed to pass the card from the prison by sticking it to the back of another prisoner. This message, addressed to a relative in East Germany , was transmitted to his family, who had by that time returned to the United States. This postcard was handed over to the US Department of State , which formally asked the Soviet government to release Noble. He was released in 1955 , along with several American prisoners of war, after the personal intervention of US President Dwight Eisenhower [3] .
Further Life
In the mid-1990s, Noble again came to live in Dresden, where he was arrested 50 years ago. The factory was returned to the ownership of his family, but the trademark was not. He died on November 10, 2007 of a heart attack.
Noble wrote 3 books about his ordeals:
- “I Found God in Soviet Russia,” John Noble and Glenn D Everett , published in 1959 in hardcover.
- “I Was a Slave in Russia” (I was a slave in Russia), John Noble (Broadview, Illinois: Cicero Bible Press, 1961).
- Verbannt und Verleugnet (Exiled and Disappeared), John Noble (Ranger Publishing House, 2005).
See also
- Dolgan, Alexander
- Kovacs, Rose
- Sgovio, Thomas
Notes
- ↑ WWII: Behind Closed Doors, Episode 6 of 6. BBC. Broadcast on BBC 2, on Monday 15 December 2008.
- ↑ 1 2 Book of I Was a Slave in Russia (I was a slave in Russia), John Noble.
- ↑ An American Survivor of the Post-war Gulag Archived November 11, 2006.
Links
- Learning the Gulag
- Obituary, The Daily Telegraph , November 16, 2007
- John Noble Survived, freed from Soviet captivity
- John noble
- Noble: Although no charges were brought against him, he was kept on a starvation diet for seven months
- Sir [sic] John Noble and Dresden, American Post-Gulag Survivor (washingtoninternational.com)
- I Was a Slave in Russia: An American Tells His Story online book on Archive.org.