Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s death on its website on Saturday. The Israeli center for Holocaust research, Yad Vashem, tweeted a message informing about the death of the writer and activist.

Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel was born in 1928 in Transylvania, Romania. He was deported to Auschwitz along with his family when he was 15 years old. His mother and younger sister died in the camp and Wiesel was moved to Buchenwald with his father, who died shortly before Allied forces liberated the prisoners in 1945.

According to a description of Wiesel’s life on the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity’s website, the holocaust survivor lived in Paris after the end of World War II and studied to become a journalist.

The survivors at Buchenwald: Elie Wiesel is in the second row from the bottom

In the years that followed, Wiesel was motivated to write his book “Night,” which detailed his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. “Night” was the first book of the Holocaust memorial trilogy, which included “Dawn” and “Day.” He also authored over 60 books, mostly in French. These included “A Beggar in Jerusalem”, “The Testament,” “The Fifth Son” and his memoirs.

A strong supporter of Israel, Wiesel also took a keen interest in the cause of the Soviet Jews, Cambodia’s refugees, the Kurds, apartheid in South Africa, among others. Aside from his work as a writer, Wiesel also enjoyed a career as an academic, serving at the Boston, Columbia and Yale universities.

Wiesel was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his lifelong work on raising awareness about the holocaust, or the “Shoah,” as it is known in Hebrew.