The phone call came late one night in 2008.

Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, 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, 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.

“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.”

Get The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. Please enter a valid email address. Sign Up Now Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

Contact us at letters@time.com.