A professor of Russian literature, N. N. Shneidman was a skilled amateur boxer in his youth. His burgeoning boxing career was cut short by the Nazi invasion of his hometown, Vilnius.
Noah Norman Shneidman was born on September 24, 1924 in Wilno, Poland. Wilno is now widely know as Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. When Noah was born, it was part of Poland and a hub for Jews, whose presence in the city dates back to 1326. Many lived within the old city although the Shneidman family stayed just outside.
Noah attended Tarbut for high school with its secular Zionist bent. Students at Tarbut learned to primarily speak in Hebrew and were schooled in the importance of physical activity. Noah joined one of the many Jewish sports clubs in the city. He became a member of the Jordan club junior basketball team. The Jordan team practiced in the Tarbut gym, where the club's boxers also trained. A group of the ball players showed up early one day to see what boxing was all about. The other players didn't take to boxing, but Noah became enamored with the sport.
Boxing was a popular sport in Poland. A bantamweight, Noah was initially trained by a Jewish heavyweight from Warsaw named Igo Blium. Shneidman started off his amateur career beating most of his opponents who were from rival Jewish clubs. The 14 year old then stepped up to face older, stronger opponents, many who were gentiles. While facing his gentile foes, Noah often heard vociferous cries of "biy Zhida!" meaning "hit the Jew." Though Jewish fans looked up to Jewish boxers, they usually remained quiet during the fights for their own safety.
In the spring of 1939, Shneidman faced Stanisław Lendzion, the runner-up at Poland nationals that year at flyweight. A 22 year old, Lendzion was an all-round athlete, competing in track and field, swimming, and skiing. In an upset for Noah, the referee called the bout a draw.
In August, Shneidman was invited to a training camp for prospects. A month later, Lithuania annexed Vilnius. Basketball was the national sport of Noah's new country as boxing was not nearly as popular as it had been in Poland. Consequently, Shneidman's Lithuanian opponents were not as tough as his Polish foes had been. In April of 1940, he fought in the Lithuanian nationals at bantamweight. Along the way to the final, Noah beat J. Žemaitis, who had grabbed silver in 1937 and gold in 1938. In the final, he faced Lendzion in a rematch. Though Shneidman's technique was superior, Lendzion's strength advantage carried the bout. Shneidman came away with silver at just 15 years old.
As a result of the earlier Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Vilnius was swallowed by the USSR in October of 1940. Jewish life, including schools and clubs, were erased. Still, Noah looked forward to graduating from high school and, as the champion of Vilnius, improving his skills enough to join the Soviet boxing team.
It was not to be. On June 22, 1940, the Nazis invaded Vilnius. The Jews inside the old city were rounded up and killed. The Jews who lived just outside, including Noah and his family, were forced into old city, which was walled off and turned into the Vilnius ghetto. Ghetto life was miserable. Noah tried desperately to get work that would keep him inside during the frigid Lithuanian winters. The stress of ghetto life eventually took his 48-year-old father. In retrospect, his father may have been lucky to avoid the hell to come.
Jewish leaders of the ghetto would occasionally stage sporting events for visiting German officials. Noah participated in a basketball game for which he was paid a pound of sugar. On May 18, 1943, he fought a Jewish refugee from Poland named Kos. Kos was older, bigger, and stronger, but Noah had better technique. Still, Noah came up short. The loss to Kos was the 18 year old's twentieth fight, so he was gifted a medal created by a Jewish craftsman commemorating the fight. His mother and sister appreciated the pound of butter he earned for the fight, but Noah was excited and grateful to have received the medal. It signified a link to his pre-ghetto life and hope for what life could become again.
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| Shneidman (left) |
Shneidman was involved in resistance activities and hid a gun in his family's apartment. At one point, he was arrested and put in jail. Many Jews who were jailed were executed, even if they were held only for a short time. Shneidman believed his popularity as a boxer contributed to his safe and timely release. In September of 1943, Nazis came in the ghetto to round up a group of Jews in order to deport them to the camps. Shneidman was part of the armed resistance. The Jewish fight resulted in two consequences: fewer German soldiers guarding the perimeter and the liquidation of the ghetto. Noah escaped into the forest.
Shneidman joined a partisan group in the fight against the Nazis. His mother perished in the camps, but his sister survived and moved to Poland. After the war, Noah became a Soviet soldier. He boxed a captain in the army and felt he deserved the win. Instead, the captain was granted the decision. Lower-ranking soldiers vehemently protested and an immediate rematch was ordered. Both fighters were exhausted, but Noah won the return bout. His reward was a lengthy furlough, which he used to return to Vilnius in hopes of finding his sister and recovering his belongings. A gentile family had taken over his ghetto residence and wouldn't let him in.
Noah continued to box until about 1949. He was a member of the Lithuanian national boxing team and the club Zaligis. He missed an opportunity to regain Polish citizenship, so he was stuck in the Soviet Union for another decade. In the meantime, he gained a PhD in sport education and coached boxing. In 1958, a window reopened to repatriate to Poland and he, his wife, and young child immigrated. They soon moved to Canada where Noah reunited with his sister. He became a professor of Russian literature at Toronto University and wrote several well-regarded books about the Vilnius ghetto and sports in the Soviet Union.
In 2006, two guys with medal detectors were scrounging around a farm in Lithuania when they heard a beeping sound. One had found something. They dug until they uncovered a small medal with unfamiliar writing. They showed friends and family the medal until one recognized the language as Yiddish. A college student studying Yiddish revealed that the medal belonged to a boxer named Noah Shneidman.
Bureaucratic squabbles prevented the medal from being returned to Noah immediately. The Jewish museum of Vilnius wanted to keep the medal. After much effort, Shneidman eventually received his medal after nearly 65 years.
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| Shneidman (right) |
On December 30, 2016, Noah died at the age of 92 in Toronto, Canada. His life was a testament to the perseverance of the Jewish people. Even in the face of unspeakable hardship, we eventually thrive.
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