John Nobel Biography

American captive held by the Russians for nine and a half years in the notorious slave labor camp, gulag. John Noble never new the reason for his confinement, but he lived to write books about his harsh experiences. After years denying knowledge of Noble’s whereabouts, the Russians released him in January 1955 when President Eisenhower personally intervened. Noble was first incarcerated in Russian prisons in Germany such as the former Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald. He was later moved to the Russian slave labor camp, gulag. During his nine and a half year confinement he was forced to do backbreaking labor, with little food and water, in temperatures 50 degrees below zero.