--- title: Elie Wiesel Dead: How He Responded to Bernie Madoff Swindle description: "We looked at each other, and our reaction was, 'We have seen worse,'" Elie Wiesel said after Bernie Madoff had stolen his life savings. canonical: https://time.com/4392286/elie-wiesel-dead-bernie-madoff/ author: Julie Shapiro article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-07-02T23:01:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-31T09:51:44.655Z article:section: U.S. og:title: How Elie Wiesel Responded to Losing His Life Savings to Bernie Madoff og:description: Wiesel and his wife also lost $15 million for their foundation og:url: https://time.com/4392286/elie-wiesel-dead-bernie-madoff/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt186e0015eb98d713/69889a7af887dc84d7e967e3/elie-wiesel-dead.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Elie Wiesel og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Elie Wiesel Responded to Losing His Life Savings to Bernie Madoff twitter:description: Wiesel and his wife also lost $15 million for their foundation twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt186e0015eb98d713/69889a7af887dc84d7e967e3/elie-wiesel-dead.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Elie Wiesel Responded to Losing His Life Savings to Bernie Madoff  by [Julie Shapiro](/author/julie-shapiro/)  ## Julie Shapiro Jul 2, 2016 11:01 PM CUT  Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winning author Elie Wiesel listens during an interview with The Associated Press in Budapest, Hungary, Dec. 10, 2009. Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winning author Elie Wiesel listens during an interview with The Associated Press in Budapest, Hungary, Dec. 10, 2009.Bela Szandelszky—AP  by [Julie Shapiro](/author/julie-shapiro/)  ## Julie Shapiro Jul 2, 2016 11:01 PM CUT The phone call came late one night in 2008. [Elie Wiesel](http://time.com/4392241/elie-wiesel-10-questions/ "undefined"), a [Holocaust survivor](http://swampland.time.com/2009/06/05/elie-wiesel-joins-obama-at-buchenwald "undefined"), renowned writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, listened as his son told him that Bernie Madoff had been arrested for swindling millions of dollars from unsuspecting investors. In addition to their savings, Wiesel and his wife Marion had also lost $15 million for the [Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity](http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/aboutus.aspx "undefined"), an organization they had founded together to promote tolerance and equality. After Wiesel put down the phone, he turned to his wife, [he later told Oprah](http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/elie-wiesel-on-losing-his-life-savings-to-bernie-madoff-video "undefined"). “We looked at each other, and our reaction was, ‘We have seen worse,'” said Wiesel, who survived Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was sent when he was 15\. “Both she and I have seen worse.” Word soon spread that the foundation had been hit by Madoff’s scheme, and Wiesel described what happened next as “something very beautiful.” “All of a sudden, we began receiving hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters and donations, small donations, from all over America, Jews and non-Jews,” Wiesel recalled to Oprah. “The American people are so generous…. We received hundreds of them, and that helped us.” Wiesel, who died on July 2 at age 87, concluded that his goal following the Madoff swindle was not to change his outlook: “It didn’t make me more pessimistic.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4392286/elie-wiesel-dead-bernie-madoff/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4392286/elie-wiesel-dead-bernie-madoff/"},"headline":"How Elie Wiesel Responded to Losing His Life Savings to Bernie Madoff","datePublished":"2016-07-02T23:01:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T09:51:44.655Z","description":"Wiesel and his wife also lost $15 million for their foundation","url":"https://time.com/4392286/elie-wiesel-dead-bernie-madoff/","keywords":["People"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt186e0015eb98d713/69889a7af887dc84d7e967e3/elie-wiesel-dead.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julie Shapiro","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/julie-shapiro/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt186e0015eb98d713/69889a7af887dc84d7e967e3/elie-wiesel-dead.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Elie Wiesel","caption":"Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winning author Elie Wiesel listens during an interview with The Associated Press in Budapest, Hungary, Dec. 10, 2009.","creditText":"Bela Szandelszky—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4392286/elie-wiesel-dead-bernie-madoff/","name":"How Elie Wiesel Responded to Losing His Life Savings to Bernie Madoff"}}]}] ```