The Historian Held Hostage in Gaza

Embed from Getty Images

Alex Dancyg was last heard from early on October 7, after warning his family about the Hamas terrorists attacking kibbutz Nir Oz, where he lived. His family was lucky to survive the massacre. Yet Dancyg was among the hundreds of Israelis who were abducted into Gaza on that horrifying day. 

His son Mati told BBC News in October that he was worried about his father’s safety due to not receiving his required medication: “Every minute that goes by is dangerous for him.” BBC noted that Dancyg could not be found in any of the known footage or pictures from October 7.

After the ceasefire-hostage deal in November, released hostages told Dancyg’s family that he was still alive and, in fact, he would teach lessons about the Holocaust to other captives while in the Gaza tunnels. (Though his niece, Tamar Pearlman, said they often requested that he change the topic.)

Dancyg is a historian who is beloved for his oratory ability. Everyone loved his lectures. They found them captivating. “He has thousands of students who adore and love him,” Mati said. “He is an exceptional teacher — every time I’ve been in a lecture of him I was fascinated.” 

Orit Margaliot worked with Dancyg at Yad Vashem, and she told The Times of Israel that “Alex is a totally unique person, he has an incredible breadth of knowledge, he has a phenomenal memory, he is caring, empathetic, and always wants to help people with what they need.” As Lior Zaltzman of Kveller put it: “Knowledge flowed out of him as easy and hypnotizing as a fountain.”

In an interview for the “Voices 4 Dialogue” web documentary, Dancyg reflected on his ability to teach. “When I talk about these issues, people can feel I’m talking from the heart, there’s this energy that people tap into,” he said. “I can’t call myself an expert, but I do know how to bring a story from medieval times to life for a young audience. That I can do.”

One of Dancyg’s main missions is to facilitate Jewish-Polish dialogue as an effective way to learn about the past and the role that the tragic experience of the Jewish people in Poland has in our understanding of the country’s history. To do so is particularly meaningful for Dancyg, who was born in Poland to Holocaust survivors on July 21, 1948. 

His family left Poland when he was a young boy, and they moved to Israel. He would not return to Poland until 1986, and it was this trip that inspired him to teach about the Holocaust and the complex history of the Jewish and Polish people. Dancyg worked for Yad Vashem and organized trips, trained guides, and authored guide books about Poland.

Dancyg focused on facilitating dialogue between young people of Jewish and Polish identity. Margaliot explains in a piece for The Jerusalem Post that he “played a crucial role in training guides to Poland, effectively introducing Polish, Polish-Jewish, and Holocaust histories to young minds.”

In the web documentary interview, Dancyg expressed his mindset for promoting this dialogue: “My motivation, which isn’t always rational but emotional, is to deal with this dialogue because I have this dialogue inside myself, between my Polish identity and my Jewish identity, and they aren’t conflicted, they’re at peace. I don’t know how but they are.”

He also emphasized that the history of Poland cannot just be about the Holocaust: “Two-thirds of the Jewish people were concentrated there, why? Because that’s where all the antisemites were? And we were waiting there for the Holocaust? In the Israeli consciousness it sometimes seems that way. But that’s nonsense! We move in the diaspora according to where it’s better for us.”

Dancyg highlighted how surveys found that visiting Poland positively influenced Israeli students’ perception of the country, demonstrating the benefits of opening one’s mind to new information and people. 

There is a “universal dimension” to the Holocaust, Dancyg believes: “How easily ordinary, normal people can be manipulated, how easy it is to kill, to murder nearly a million people within one year at Treblinka…how easy it was to organize it. And you can always find people to do it. I talk about this dimension. I try to talk about this all the time.” 

Ultimately it is crucial, Dancyg argues, for human behavior during the Holocaust to be examined. This universal approach is the only true way to understand how the catastrophe came to be. How people come to perceive others as a threat. How they become barbaric as a result. “Who can be sure that they are resistant to that?,” he asks. “What would I do if my family were threatened with death? I have no idea…”

On October 7, the Jewish people were once again targeted by barbarism and genocidal motives. Sadly, Dancyg experienced this kind of terror first hand, and remains in Gaza, with his status still uncertain. In Poland, where Dancyg earned multiple recognitions from the government for his work, artists have painted murals depicting the historian as part of the Polish #StandWithAlex campaign to bring him home.

Dancyg has been a champion of dialogue, and it is dialogue — albeit a rather different kind — that is currently underway between Israel and Hamas. It could be this dialogue that frees Dancyg and all of those who are currently held by Hamas and are enduring unfathomable trauma.

A June survey by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that the majority of Israelis, even if many have reservations, support the ceasefire proposal President Biden announced on May 31. The Times of Israel reports that Prime Minister Netanyahu claims he has “not moved a millimeter” from this plan. It is time to show it.

As the prospects of a deal appear to become more positive, yet still remain uncertain, let us hope and pray that through these negotiations, these dialogues, an agreement will be reached to bring the hostages home now.