Alex Dancyg (b. 1948)

Childhood in Poland and move to IsraelDirect link for this paragraphGo back to indexGo back to index

If the phrases "to live a double life" and "to have a double identity" had no negative connotations of deliberate obfuscation, they would perfectly fit Aleksander Dancyg from Warsaw, or rather Alex Dancyg from a kibbutz in the Negev Desert.

He was born in the Mokotów neighborhood of Warsaw in 1948 as the second child of Nina (Nycha) and Marcin (Mordechaj) Dancyg. He spent his early years as any other child in post-war Poland, though perhaps he was slightly more well-off than most. His father, as Dancyg said himself, was part of the government apparatus: they could afford a housekeeper, and Alex himself had a nanny. It lasted until 1957.

Fragment of the web documentary "Voices 4 Dialogue" – Alex Dancyg. 

 

At this point Alex's second life started: at nine years old, he and his family moved to Israel.

Certainly I did not specifically identify as a Jew; I was a Pole. I, Oleś Dancyg, a Warsaw native, was one hundred percent Polish. I only started consciously thinking of the word Jew once in Israel where I went to school, and began to read more.

For the next thirty years Alex Dancyg's life in Israel was similar to that of many of his peers. He attended school; he joined the leftist youth organisation Hashomer Hatzair; he joined the military and served in several wars. He attained a degree in history. He started a family, had three sons and one daughter. He lives and works in the Nir Oz kibbutz.

Return to Poland after thirty yearsDirect link for this paragraphGo back to indexGo back to index

This lasted until 1986, at which point, after an absence of nearly thirty years, he returned to Poland. An irrigation engineer in the kibbutz and a historian, he was part of one of the first groups of young Israelis to visit Poland and, specifically, Auschwitz.

Alex Dancyg recalls that during this trip it first became clear to him how difficult it would be to explain the complicated Polish–Jewish relations to young Israelis, to make it clear to them that Auschwitz or Treblinka are testimonies to a shared tragedy.

Fragment of the web documentary "Voices 4 Dialogue" – Alex Dancyg. 

 

Several years later, in 1990, the Yad Vashem Institute and the Israeli Ministry of Education offered him the opportunity to lead courses for tour guides accompanying Israeli groups visiting Poland. These days such course leaders number in the hundreds.

Once in a while there is a reminder in my calendar – Polish seminar – and I go to Yad Vashem. I talk, I lecture. I fill myself up with this intellectual pseudo-labour and then return to the fields. And this combination is simply brilliant. I would recommend it to everyone. As long as I am able, I will continue to work like this

– he said of his life divided between the kibbutz and educating guides, adding half-seriously that even though he is quite lazy, he remains a dedicated worker.

When a Polish high school student asked him whether he ever forgave the Germans for killing his people, he responded that it is not his place to forgive, and that all Germans were not in the SS or Gestapo. He visits Germany and has friends there. Nevertheless, he thought of those who would ponder how to make socks out of human hair; those who would then wear them. He thought even more often of those who were forced into the Sonderkommando. If he, father of four and now a grandfather, and that Polish student were in a concentration camp, they would probably be made part of the Sonderkommando – because he and the student both would want to live. This was Alex's answer to the student: a situation was created that taught us that anyone can be made to aid the annihilation of his people. This is perhaps the best example of how Alex Dancyg, contributor at the Yad Vashem Institute in Israel, helps spread awareness of the Holocaust and the Institute's work.

Subsequent visits to PolandDirect link for this paragraphGo back to indexGo back to index

What does any given trip to Poland look like for Dancyg?

Monday: unveiling a memorial at the site of the ghetto in Szachulc; press conference; meeting with the local community and youth from local schools.

Tuesday: attending the conference "Mission and activities of the Yad Vashem Institute" for school-aged youth and members of the local community in Kalisz; press conference; visit to the Jewish cemetery at Podmiejska St.; touring Kalisz; workshop for Holocaust and human rights educators.

Wednesday: meeting with the students of two high schools in Ostrów Wielkopolski on the Institute's role in commemorating Holocaust victims, its research, as well as student exchanges between Polish and Israeli youth; touring a restored synagogue and memorial at the site of the Jewish cemetery; meeting with local government representatives; meeting with members of the Friends of Ostrów Synagogue charity.

Thursday: meeting with Holocaust history and antidiscrimination educators in Szamotuły attended by local government representatives; meeting with students from local high schools about the inception of the Institute and its role in commemorating Holocaust victims.

Then, a return to the kibbutz. It is time to irrigate hectares of fields. It is also time for family, for grandchildren. Time to read Masłowska and Pilch. And time to be a football fan, as Alex Dancyg is a dedicated one. Paweł Smoleński, writing about Dancyg in "Gazeta Wyborcza", brings up an anecdote from 1973. Israeli paratroopers huddle in the trenches near the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War. One of the soldiers has a transistor radio on. When he shouts in joy, his fellows ask if the war is over. But it turns out that Poland has tied with England at Wembley, earning a place in the World Cup final. Another example of a double life – the soldier in question was, of course, Alex Dancyg.

Fragment of the web documentary "Voices 4 Dialogue" – Alex Dancyg. 

Web documentary "Voices 4 Dialogue"Direct link for this paragraphGo back to indexGo back to index

Subtitles (CC): Eng, De, Heb, Pl.

1. Intro
2. About Alex Dancyg
3. Common history
4. Beginning of his professional career
5. Training Israeli Guides
6. The journey to Poland of Israeli youth and youth meetings as an educational challenge
7. Seminars for Polish teachers at Yad Vashem
8. The universal dimension of the Holocaust
9. Shared memory
10. Dialogue

Additional materials

• Childhood in Poland
• Emigration from Poland
• Life on a Kibbutz and Studying History
• Anna Łukasiak on Meetings with Israeli Youth at School
• Orit Margaliot on working with Alex Dancyg
• The Wartime story of Alex Dancyg's parents and sister

Watch: "Voices 4 Dialogue" web documentary

LiteratureDirect link for this paragraphGo back to indexGo back to index

Selected bibliographic items

Press articles

• A. Dancyg, Chcę nauczyć kibicowania w Polsce, rozm. W. Sulisz, „Dziennik Wschodni”, 29.09.2008, s. 6.
• A. Dancyg, Nie ma o czym mówić, rozm. T. Czajkowski, „Scriptores”, R. XII, 2005 (29), nr 3, s. 202–204.
• A. Dancyg, Nie wykrzykniki lecz znaki zapytania są ważniejsze, rozm. M. Duch-Dyngosz, „Znak”, czerwiec 2013, nr 697, s. 44–48.
• A. Dancyg, Wyciskacz płaczu czy lekcja historii, rozm. G. Józefczuk, „Gazeta w Lublinie”, 10.01.2009, s. 5.
• A. Machcewicz, Sienkiewicz zostaje na zawsze, „Rzeczpospolita”, dodatek „Plus Minus”, 26–27.10.2002, nr 251 (6328), s. 4.
• P. Smoleński, Bałagan. Alfabet izraelski, Warszawa 2012, s. 164–168.

Internet sources

• A. Dancyg, Nagroda PolCul – Podziękowanie, [online:] http://polcul.pl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=102:dancyg&catid=18:listy-laureatow&Itemid=47, [dostęp:] 3.04.2014.
• M. Kosz-Koszewska, Alex Dancyg nareszcie w Białymstoku, [online:] http://annajaninakloza.blog.onet.pl/2011/10/14/alex-dancyg-nareszcie-w-bialymstoku/, [dostęp:] 3.04.2014.
• A. Szymańska, Alex Dancyg: – Jestem Żydem i Polakiem, [online:] http://www.gazetalubuska.pl/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130623/POWIAT/130629860, [dostęp:] 3.04.2014.
• P. Zychowicz, Polska nie taka straszna, [online:] http://www.rp.pl/artykul/9102,713329-Polska-nie-taka-straszna.html, [dostęp:] 3.04.2014.

Radio broadcasts

• Podwójna tożsamość – reportaż Marty Rebzda, [online:] http://www.polskieradio.pl/80/1007/Artykul/518094,Podwojna-tozsamosc-Marta-Rebzda, [dostęp:] 3.04.2014.
• Tikkun – reportaż Alicji Kulik, [online:] http://www.radio.bialystok.pl/reportaz/judaica/id/75163, [dostęp:] 3.04.2014.
• Filmy
• Czytając Sienkiewicza na pustyni Negev, reż. K. Bukowski (1999), [online:] http://www.filmpolski.pl/fp/index.php?film=4212526, [dostęp:] 3.04.2014.