Polish-born Israeli historian Alex Dancyg has dedicated his life to passing on the memory of the Holocaust. Now the 75-year-old is feared to be among the hostages Hamas in holding in Gaza.
Desperate for his safe return, friends and family have launched a campaign to build pressure for his release.
In the weeks since the October 7 attack, messages tagged #StandWithAlex have been shared widely on Polish social media, and Dancyg’s face is seen on posters and murals painted in the streets of Warsaw.
Many hail him as the “ambassador of dialogue” for his long efforts to ease long-standing suspicions between Poland and Israel and the ties he built across both Europe and the Middle East.
The academic and his family were at the Nir Oz kibbutz near Gaza when the Hamas militants launched their cross-border attacks and killed more than 1,400 people, according to Israeli authorities.
In the confusion of the early hours, the elder historian gave urgent warnings to his son.
“He was the one who told me: ‘Look at the messages, look what’s going on’,” Mati Dancyg, who survived hiding in a shelter.
When the attack was over, the elder Dancyg was gone, and his phone has gone silent.
Born in Poland, Dancyg moved to Israel aged nine — and only came back to Poland three decades later as an interpreter for a school trip to Auschwitz, the death camp built by Nazi Germany.
He then took a job at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, where he spent decades giving lectures to school children and training other guides.
Dancyg has regularly lectured at Polish schools, with many of them now signing the petition for his release.
