WASHIGNTON — Human rights icon Elie Wiesel, 87, has died, according to multiple reports.
Israel’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem announced the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner’s death Saturday.
Yad Vashem mourns the passing of Elie Wiesel-Holocaust survivor, Nobel laureate, renowned author https://t.co/YhyhrvZqhl
— Yad Vashem (@yadvashem) July 2, 2016
The New York Times reports that Menachem Rosensaft, a longtime friend and the founding chairman of the International Network of Children of Jewish Survivors, confirmed the death in a phone call.
Wiesel was just 15 when the Nazis came for him and his family and took them to Auschwitz. Many of his relatives died, but he survived — and became a champion for human rights.
Wiesel is best known for keeping alive the the memory of the Holocaust with his memoir “Night,” based on his experience as a teenage prisoner in Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.
