Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor who went on to become a renowned author and Nobel Peace Price winner, died on Saturday, July 2, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He was 87.
Wiesel and his father were forced into Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp, in May 1944 toward the end of World War II. He wrote about the experience in his 1955 memoir, Night.
Since its release, Night has sold more than six million copies and has been translated into 30 languages. It is also standard reading in many schools around the world.
After World War II, the activist worked as a journalist for French and Israeli publications. He moved to New York in 1955, where he briefly covered the United Nations.
In 1961, Wiesel covered the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann for a New York-based Yiddish newspaper, The Forward. Two years later, he became a U.S. citizen, his first citizenship since “becoming stateless during the Holocaust,” according to Haaretz.
The novelist became a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1986 for his work in speaking out against violence and racism. He was also the recipient of more than 100 honorary doctorates and worked as a professor at several universities, including the City University of New York, Boston University, Yale University and Barnard College of Columbia University.
Wiesel is survived by his wife, Marion, their son, Shlomo Elisha Wiesel, his stepdaughter, Jennifer, and two grandchildren.