Parshas Toldos 5786
- Torah Tavlin
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
אם תעשה עמנו רעה כאשר לא נגענוך וכאשר עשינו עמך רק טוב ונשלחך בשלום ... (כו-כט)
The winter of 1945 was bitter and long, but the U.S. Third Army pressed forward. Under General George S. Patton’s command, they had carved a relentless path through France and into Germany, liberating town after town from Nazi control. Their mission was clear: crush the last vestiges of Hitler’s regime and bring freedom to those who had suffered under its boot.
But as the Third Army advanced, they began to uncover something far darker than enemy resistance. Whispers turned into reports - of camps, of prisoners, of horrors too cruel to imagine. These weren’t just military targets. They were places where humanity had been buried under barbed wire and ash.
On April 4, 1945, the Third Army liberated Ohrdruf, the first concentration camp encountered by American forces. The soldiers were stunned. General Eisenhower himself visited the site, insisting that journalists and members of Congress come see it too. “Let the world know,” he said. “Let no one ever say this didn’t happen.”
One week later, the Third Army reached the gates of Buchenwald. The camp sat on a wooded hill near Weimar. The gates bore the cruel inscription: Jedem das Seine - “To each his own.” Inside, the stench of death hung heavy. Thousands of prisoners had perished. Thousands more clung to life by a thread.
Among the liberators was a Black soldier from Harlem. His name was Ferdinand L. Alcindor. He had marched with the Third Army through the mud and fire, carrying not just a rifle but the weight of his own country’s contradictions. He fought for freedom abroad while being denied it at home. But nothing in his life had prepared him for Buchenwald.
As the gates crashed open, Ferdinand stepped into a nightmare. Emaciated bodies. Hollow eyes. Children with limbs like twigs. He had seen hatred before, but this was its final form.
Then he saw the boy. Seven years old, maybe. Barefoot. Silent. Shaking. The child didn’t cry, he couldn’t. Ferdinand knelt and lifted him onto his shoulders. The boy clung to him, unsure whether this towering figure was real or imagined. Nearby, German townspeople had been forced to witness the camp’s horrors. Eisenhower had ordered it. “They must see what they allowed,” he said. Ferdinand turned to them, his voice rising above the silence. “Look at this little one,” he said. “This boy? This is the enemy you feared? This innocent child, and millions like him, is who you tried to wipe from the earth?”
That moment never left him. Years later, on his deathbed, Ferdinand asked his son, “Promise me you’ll find that boy.”
His son, Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr., carried that promise like a torch. He grew tall, towering, in fact. At age 12, he was already 6’8” - eventually rising like a spire to a height of 7’2”. He became a basketball legend, known to the world as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But fame never dulled the fire of his father’s words. He was not only one of the greatest basketball players in history but also a colossal figure in the fight for social justice, using his platform to speak out against racism, antisemitism, and inequality. From boycotting the 1968 Olympics in solidarity with civil rights protests to writing powerful essays on systemic injustice, Kareem has consistently championed truth and compassion over silence and complacency.
In 2011, Kareem flew to Israel. He had learned that the boy his father lifted up had survived. That he had grown into a man of wisdom and faith. That he was now known as R’ Yisroel Meir Lau shlita, former Chief Rabbi of Israel.
Their meeting was quiet, reverent. Two men - one Jewish, one Black - linked by a moment of compassion in a place of unimaginable cruelty. Rabbi Lau remembered the Black soldiers. He remembered being lifted. Whether it was Ferdinand Alcindor or another liberator, the gesture had stayed with him. Kareem didn’t need confirmation. The story had already shaped his life. He had stood on his father’s shoulders, just as his father had once lifted a child toward the sky.
The path of the Third Army was paved with sacrifice and resolve. But it also carried moments of grace. In the ruins of Buchenwald, a soldier from Harlem lifted a child not just to safety, but toward hope. Because the road to liberation didn’t end at the gates of a camp. It continues wherever people stand against hate. (The Road to Buchenwald: A Soldier’s Promise)