John Noble - I Was a Slave in Russia
An American Tells His Story
Of all the stories that have come back to us about life in Russian prisons, this is the most comprehensive and detailed, for John Noble, a young Detroiter taken prisoner by the Russians in 1945, was shuttled from prison to prison—Dresden, Mühlberg and Buchenwald—ending up finally in Vorkuta, 50 miles above the Arctic Circle, where it is too cold for bacteria to survive. While the Russians kept his name out of their files and refused to acknowledge his U. S. citizenship, he was kept working in the mines pushing 2-ton coal cars even after his weight had dropped from 155 to 95 lbs. He tells the whole astounding story of his life in Vorkuta, including the famous slave uprising in 1953 after Beria's arrest.
Here we learn why self-mutilation has become the best way to escape from the MVD secret police, who, bad as they are, are less to be feared than the "Blatnois"—the group of hardened Russian criminals who rule the Russian slave camps by blackmail and murder. We also learn of other Americans still in these Russian prisons.
Through the unique contact he established with guards and administrators after he became proficient in the Russian language, the author learned of the dissatisfaction that exists throughout the Russian empire. This forms the basis for his belief that there will soon be uprisings not only in the prison camps but all over Russia—if the U.S. does its part.
Shortly after his return to the United States, Mr. Noble spent over two weeks in Washington briefing State Department officials on all he saw and heard. He now spends most of his time lecturing throughout the country, trying to explain and convince a free people that concessions of any kind on our part are unnecessary in dealing with the Communists. Their own internal weakness, due to political instability as well as economic trouble, gives us a priceless opportunity to call their bluff, he says.
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