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Alex Dancyg

Alex Dancyg was a Polish-born Israeli historian and educator at Yad Vashem who worked for Polish-Jewish dialogue and was killed in Hamas captivity after being kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz in 2023.

1948 to 2024Holocaust education at Yad VashemTraining guides for Poland tripsPolish-Jewish dialogueHostage from Nir Oz

Born: 21 July 1948, Mokotów
Died: 14 February 2024, Khan Yunis
Occupation: historian, pedagogue

Alex Dancyg was born in 1948 in Mokotów

Dancyg was born in Warsaw in 1948 to parents who survived the Holocaust, Nina and Marcin Dancyg. His father was a lawyer and his mother a historian. In 1957 the family moved to Israel, where he joined the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement.

He served in the paratroopers and fought in the Six-Day War. He then settled at Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he raised a family. In 1974 he earned a degree in history from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and later taught at the Ma'ale HaBesor regional school.

In 1986 he visited Poland for the first time since childhood, including Auschwitz. From 1990 he worked with Yad Vashem and the Education Ministry, training guides for Israeli youth trips to Poland. He led a program in which pupils from 120 Israeli and Polish schools met.

On 7 October 2023 Hamas militants kidnapped him from Nir Oz to Gaza, where he gave history lectures to other hostages. In July 2024 the IDF announced he was no longer alive. His body was recovered from a tunnel in Khan Yunis in August 2024, and a memorial to him was set up in Warsaw's Jewish cemetery.