Holocaust Survivor, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel Dies at 87

— -- Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has died, Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial said. He was 87.

He was described in his Nobel prize citation as "a messenger to mankind."

"His message is one of peace, atonement and human dignity," the statement said. "His belief that the forces fighting evil in the world can be victorious is a hard-won belief."

"My husband was a fighter," his wife, Marion Wiesel said. "He fought for the memory of the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and he fought for Israel. He waged countless battles for innocent victims regardless of ethnicity or creed. But what was most meaningful to him was teaching the innumerable students who attended his university classes. We are deeply moved by the outpouring of love and support we have already seen in the wake of his passing."

His son, Elisha Wiesel, remembered him as a "gentle and devout man" who was also active on the world stage.

"My father raised his voice to presidents and prime ministers when he felt issues on the world stage demanded action," Elisha Wiesel said. "But those who knew him in private life had the pleasure of experiencing a gentle and devout man who was always interested in others, and whose quiet voice moved them to better themselves. I will hear that voice for the rest of my life, and hope and pray that I will continue to earn the unconditional love and trust he always showed me."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement saying Wiesel "gave expression to the victory of the human spirit over cruelty and evil, through his extraordinary personality and his fascinating books."

"In the darkness of the Holocaust, in which our sisters and brothers were killed -- 6 million -- Elie Wiesel served as a ray of light and example of humanity who believed in the goodness in people," Netanyahu said.

The prime minister gave thanks that he had been blessed to have know Wiesel, and learned from him, personally.

Wiesel was born in the Romanian town of Sighet in 1928. He was 15 when the German Nazis forced the Jewish community of Sighet to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in nearby Poland. His mother and younger sister died at the camp, but his two older sisters survived.

Wiesel was sent with his father to Buchenwald, where his father died shortly before the concentration camp was liberated in April 1945.

After World War II ended, Wiesel studied in Paris and later became a journalist. He wrote an internationally acclaimed memoir, "Night," in which he details his experience with his father in the concentration camps. He has since authored more than 60 works of fiction and nonfiction.

Wiesel was president of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, an organization he founded with his wife Marion in 1986 that seeks to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice.

Wiesel holds more than 100 honorary degrees from institutions of higher learning and has received numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal, the National Humanities Medal and the Medal of Liberty, according to a biography on his foundation’s website.

In 1986, Wiesel won the Nobel Peace Prize with the selection committee hailing him as "a messenger to mankind; his message is one of peace, atonement and human dignity."

President Barack Obama said Wiesel "was a great moral voice of our time and a conscience for our world. He was also a dear friend. We will miss him deeply."

Obama appointed Wiesel to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council in June. The two first met in 2009, when Wiesel joined Obama and German Chancellor Merkel in a visit to Buchenwald Concentration Camp.

The three toured the camp and met with young Germans before delivering remarks. Wiesel spoke last, in his impromptu speech he reflected how the visit was "actually a way of coming to visit my father's grave -– but he had no grave. His grave is somewhere in the sky."

Wiesel also expressed his "high hopes" for the young Obama to use his "moral vision of history" to bring more peace to a world that Wiesel said he felt had long forgotten the message of the Holocaust, with some denying its horrors altogether.

The two dined together several times through Obama's presidency, and their relationship endured despite Wiesel's opposition to the president's nuclear deal with Iran. Wiesel attended Netanyahu’s controversial speech to Congress and even took out a full page ad in the Washington Post and New York Times inviting Obama to listen with him.

Wiesel also told Israel's Haaretz newspaper in 2012 that the two were working on a book together, "a book of two friends."

In a statement, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said Wiesel "gave the voiceless not only a voice, but a lasting influence on the world."

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin added that Wiesel was a "hero of the Jewish people, and a giant of all humanity."

Rivlin called him "one of the Jewish people's greatest sons, who touched the hearts of so many, and helped us to believe in forgiveness, in life, and in the eternal bond of the Jewish people. May his memory be a blessing, everlastingly engraved in the heart of the nation."

World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder also eulogized Wiesel, calling him "a beacon of light" and said the Jewish world "owes him an enormous debt of gratitude."

"Today, Jews and non-Jews around the world mourn a man who was undoubtedly one of the great Jewish teachers and thinkers of the past 100 years. His passing leaves a void that will be impossible to fill. At the same time, his writings will live on," Lauder said.

ABC News' Molly Hunter and Alexander Mallin contributed to this report