| A great man, a great writer, and a witness. Rest in peace and be with your loved ones. |
Yad Vashem, the world center for Holocaust research, documentation, education and commemoration, confirmed Wiesel's death in a tweet 'Yad Vashem mourns the passing of Elie Wiesel-Holocaust survivor, Nobel laureate, renowned author,' the museum said on Twitter.
Wiesel was born in Romania in 1928. At age 15, while pursuing Jewish studies, he and his family were taken by the Nazis to Auschwitz, where his mother and younger sister died. Wiesel survived Auschwitz, but was later transferred to Buchenwald, where his farther perished.
Wiesel's experiences in the concentration camps became the basis for his book 'Night', which won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Wiesel was liberated from the camp in 1945 and went on to study at the Sorbonne in Paris from 1948 until 1951.
He became a journalist and learned French, which became the primary language he wrote in for Israeli and French publications. For the next decade he refused to discuss what he had been subjected to during the Holocaust. Later, a rabbi convinced him to document his experience in the camps.