Evening star. [volume], April 04, 1955, Page A-18 *, Image 18

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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A-18 *
THE EVENING. STAR, Washington, D. C.
MOMDAT, AiWa>A I*9» '
I Was a Slave Laborer *
Reds Starve Half of Prisoners to Death
At Dresden, but Noble Survives Ordeal
BY JOHN H. NOBLE
In Collaboration With Martin L. Croat
NEW YORK, April 4.—Our ar
rest had come swiftly and unex
pectedly. During my visit to
Western Germany, the Reds had
taken over our house, torn down
the American flags and seized 12
American Gls and a colonel from
the 76th Division who had used
our place in Dresden to collect
Americans still straggling in be
fore bringing them back to
United States Army lines 35
Ukiles to the west. The colonel
had been released but the Gls
were‘still in prison.
At the Russian MVD head
quarters on Dresden’s Hausen-
Second in o series ot articles by a 31-
yaar-old Detroit man wbo returned
home lost January after being im
prisoned b) the Soviet Union for 9Vi
years. From 1950 until his release,
Mr. Noble was a slave laborer in the
Arctic coal mining camp of Vorkuta
in Eastern Russia.
strasse, where my father and I
were taken, my complaints that
the arrest was against interna
tional law fell on deaf ears. The
Red officer in charge was a Capt.
Pankov. He looked carefully at
my American passport and mut
tered; “Our chiefs know what
they are doing.”
I was put into a small room
with a guard. For days no one
spoke to me. Then on July 7,
1945, about 10 days after they
were first seized, I saw the 12
Gls ostensibly being returned to
their division. On the 15th,
MVD Col. Volkowitz walked into
my room, stared at me for sev
eral minutes, then walked out
without a word.
On the 21st, I was finally taken
before Capt. Pankov, who
listened to my protests of illegal
arrest with a forced interest,
then informed me I was going to'
Dresden Prison.
“You have no reason to com
plain,” he said, "you are merely
a witness in your father’s case.
You’ll be released in two or three
days.”
Dresden Prison had been half
destroyed by an Allied air raid,
but the Russians were using the
part still intact. I was put in a
six-by-eight-foot cell. There I
stayed in solitary confinement
for 70 days, talking to myself
out loud tp keep from going mad.
Later on. five of us prisoners
shared the miserable quarters.
The only light came from a
"window” the size of two bricks
over my head.
No Bath for 5 Months
From July 21 until December
28, 1945, 1 never left that cage
like cell for a minute. I was
never questioned and never
charged with a crime. During
those five months I lived in the
same suit I was arrested in,
without a bath, a shave, a hair
cut or fresh air. I was given
one pint of warm water a day in
which to wash my hands and
face—but not enough to rinse
out my filthy clothes.
The diet bordered on slow
starvation. Each morning we had
bread and watery brown coffee,
pea soup at noon, and thin cab
bage soup in the evening. The
weakest of the prisoners finally
died from malnutrition, but on
August 2, the young MVD cap
tain who patrolled the halls with
a whip at his side (perhaps in
deferenoe to Russia’s allies, I was
never touched > decided to hasten
the process. That morning, in
stead of bread and coffee, we
were given only coffee. For the
other two meals, our soup was
replaced by a cup of warm water.
The next day it was the same.
We were being starved to death.
The clatter the second and
third day was deafening. Prison
ers banged on the doors and
screamed violently for food. Dr.
Ring, a former Red mayor of
Chemnitz, clanged his stool fero
ciously against the steel door
and cursed the Communists at
the top of his voice. He was
silenced by 20 whip lashes. Then
as the starvation continued, the
clatter slowly ebbed as the pris
oners lost their strength.
Without Food 12 Days
We received no food for 12
days. Some prisoners spent all
the time seated crosslegged in
front of their cell door, whimper
ing. They were too weak to crawl
back to their bunks. I tried to
conserve my strength as best I
could. T stayed on iny bunk, the
coffee or water on a stool next
to me. and took a sip every half
hour to sustain life.. The weak
ness kept me from going to
sleep, and I lay awake all night
listening to the wailing prayers
of the Moslem Red Army soldiers
from Georgia in the cells next
to mine.
Each morning I watched the
sun through the peephole win
dow and knew just when the
guard would appear—hoping des
perately he would bring food.
It happened on August 14, the
13th day The guard came into
my cell with two ounces of bread
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crumbs on a piece of paper,
f held it in my hand and cried
for 15 minutes before I could
touch a piece. 1 saved a little
bit each day in fear the starva
tion would start again the next
day.
More than half the prisoners
died during this ordeal, and
many others lost their sanity.
The starvation had caused the
water to collect in the body and
many died from what seemed to
be suffocation caused by a
horrible swelling of the neck.
There were an enormous amount
of suicides. One Brazilian ac
cused of being a Western spy
tied his neck to a radiator with
his tom shirt and hung himself
by slumping quickly to the floor.
My feet swelled during this time,
and I even thought of suicide.
But I didn’t have the courage.
The next few months we
were kept between life and
death. They continued the two
ounce ration of ■ bread for a
month, then added two ounces
more daily each month for four
months.
Shifted to Worker’s Cell
My deliverance came on Jan
uary 6, 1946. Stepanenkov, Gen.
Klebov’s aide who had helped
arrest us, was now a fellow
prisoner in Dresden, a trustee in
charge of the prison work. That
I was an American had stuck
in his mind and he arranged to
transfer me to the worker’s cell
—where I was put to work clean
ing floors, delivering food and
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1 A i * > {■
helping the prison doctor. For
thW, I was given extra rations.
The doctor, a fellow-inmate,
had a well-equipped office com
plete with an operating table, but
we had no drugs, anesthetics, or
even an aspirin. We used toilet
paper for bandages. All we could
do when a prisoner returned
from a rough MVD interrogation
was to use pincers to pick the
bits of shirt out of the tangle of
blood and skin on his whipped
back.
In March I was given a more
responsible job—one I believe
that finally sent me to Vorkuta
instead of being released with my
father and others in 1950. I
was put in charge of all the
prison office work. Officially the
job belonged to my cellmate, a
Bulgar who spoke Russian, but
he spent all his time bribing the
guards to let him into the wom
en’s cells. (In my nlne-and-a
half years I learned that the
average Russian soldier is an
easy-going good-natured soul
who can be bribed to do any
thing—except when he is drunk
on vodka, as he often is, and on
Friday afternoons, when he re
ceives his weekly political indoc
trination lecture.)
I had access to 21,000 MVD
records, from which I learned
that there were two other,Ameri
cans in the prison—a GI, “Junior
O’Connor,” and a girl, Elizabeth
Weitert, charged with being an
American spy.
By this time, the former prison
commander, the young MVD
captain with the whip, was also
a prisoner. He had been sen
tenced to a year for permitting
thefts in the prison. We also, had
the. nephew of the Communist
Minister - President of Saxony
and the son of his Finance Min
ister, who with three girl friends
were jailed for tearing down
posters advocating union of the
Communists and Socialists in
East Germany.
There were three kinds of
prisoners: Those seized by the
MVD; those court-martialed by
the Red Army and the MVD;
and those arrested by the branch
of the Communist police organi
zation called the KPZ. The court
martial prisoners included Rus
sian AWOLs who got five to eight
years, and the whole seven-man
MVD staff of the town of Risa,
charged with wanting to defect
to the West. Their colonel, a
good-looking South Siberian, had
been director at a rubber factory l
before the war. The major, an
engineer who spoke some Eng
lish, had once worked in San
Francisco.
29 a Day Seized at Random
The KPZ police arrested 20
people off the streets of Dresden
at random each day—pent to
prison those against whom they
could find a charge and dis
patched the others to one of the
concentration camps. It made
little sense, except that it suc
ceeded in keeping the civilians
in perpetual fear.
One day in searching the ;
prison card files, I noticed there |
was no card for me. Strangely j
enough the absence of this offi- '
cial recognition disturbed me. |
Perhaps not having a crime to
charge me with, they’ll just let!
me rot here forever, I thought.!
Finally, 14 months after I was \
arrested, I was summoned to the ;
MVD interrogation wing of the j
prison and brought before my
old friend, Capt. Pankov. I was
hopeful for an early release.
“ft’s been 14 months, captain,”
I said. "I am an American citi
zen being held against my will,
without a charge. I insist you
notify ’ha American authorities
in West Germany.”
Quizzed 15 Minutes
He looked at me obviously dis
interested, passed over my com
plaints and asked questions for
15 minutes. “Name? Citizenship?
Where were you bora in Amer
ica? Why were you arrested?
“Why did you fly an Americas
flag in the Soviet sector? What
were the American officers do
ing at your house? Why didn’t
you report that you hadn't been
interrogated?”
When I told him I had re
ported to his assistant, Lt. Rosin
sky, that I was never interro-
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gated, he just stared at me
blankly.
"When will I be released?” I
asked hopefully.
He waved his hand to dismiss
me, then answered under his
breath. “We’re looking into it.”
I had learned enough’about Red
justice to doubt now that Capt.
Pankov would do even that. But
I never dreamt I would spend
another eight years in Soviet
prisons.
(Copyright, 1955, by North American
Newspaper Alliance, Inc.) 4
Tomorrow: Fifteen Years
at Hard Labor.
Cathedral Being Built
In Colombia Salt Mines
Miners will worship in a new
cathedral being carved from the
salt walls of the ancient Zlpa-
qulra salt mine 40 miles north
of ; Bogota, Colombia.
The huge cathedral of rock
salt-will be almost as large as
Notre Dame in Paris, its builders
say. The nave and two aisles are
nearly 400 feet long and there
will be 10 auxiliary altars. The
great cross, the ceilings, walls
and pillars will be of salt.
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