What does Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor who has dedicated his life to fighting hatred and intolerance, think about Bernard L. Madoff?

“ ‘Psychopath’  it’s too nice a word for him,” Mr. Wiesel said in his first public comments on Mr. Madoff and the Ponzi scheme he is accused of perpetrating on thousands of individuals and charities, including the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity.

“ ‘Sociopath,’ ‘psychopath,’ it means there is a sickness, a pathology. This man knew what he was doing. I would simply call him thief, scoundrel, criminal.”

Mr. Wiesel’s charity lost $15.2 million, and he and his wife, Marion, lost their life savings. “This was a personal tragedy where we discovered all of a sudden what we had done in 40 years  my books, my lectures, everything  was gone,” said Mr. Wiesel, who shared his story as part of a panel discussion on the Madoff scandal on Thursday.