METHUEN — The sick Jewish prisoners were shot one by one as they exited the quarantine room at the concentration camp on that wretched night more than six decades ago.

Except for typhoid-stricken Israel Arbeiter, who slipped out a window and fled to a neighboring barracks, where his friends hid him.

"Out of the 87 (people) that were there, I am the only one that survived and came out alive," he said.

If not for several miracles, Arbeiter, now an 83-year-old Newton resident, would not have lived to speak with eighth-graders at Tenney Grammar School yesterday. He spent most of World War II living in ghettos and concentration camps, including Auschwitz.

"It was the will of God that wanted me to live," he said.

The Tenney students began reading "The Diary of Anne Frank" about a month ago and decided they needed to learn more about the Holocaust. So they wrote letters to Arbeiter asking him to speak at the school.

"It is very hard for us to comprehend the sheer enormity of the cruelty and hatred," student Alexa Grande said.

Arbeiter is the president of the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston. His mission is to teach people about the Holocaust.

"It must never happen again," he said.

He testified at Nazi war crimes trials in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. He addressed the U.S. Congress about helping Holocaust survivors recover lost bank accounts and insurance policies, he has spoken to students at prestigious colleges and universities, he has been the subject of numerous media write-ups, and he has a spot on YouTube.com.

But no engagement pleases him more than those when children are the audience, he said.

"You are the future of the world," he told them.

He rolled up the sleeves of his blue sport coat and dress shirt and showed the youths the tattoo on his left forearm, saying A-18651 — his serial number at Auschwitz.

Arbeiter was born in Plock, Poland, in 1925. He lived in a middle-class home with his parents and four brothers until the Germans invaded.

He and his family were forced to live in ghettos, where all seven of them would live in a single room with no running water, no electricity and no toilet. Things got worse on Oct. 26, 1942, when his parents and 7-year-old brother were taken away and gassed to death at Treblinka.

"That was the darkest day of my life, which I still carry with me," he said, choking up slightly.

The Nazis sent Arbeiter and two of his brothers to concentration camps. His oldest brother disappeared.

Arbeiter was forced into a job where he produced ammunition for the German army. He later saw a man who randomly fired a machine gun at prisoners for fun.

Arbeiter looked at his audience and remarked that he was about their age when the war broke out. Americans today, thankfully, cannot understand what it was like to live in concentration camps.

"Thank God that you didn't have the experience of exactly being there," he said.

All they can do is listen to people like Arbeiter.

"He's like a hero to me," Orlando Gonzalez, 13, said after the discussion ended.

Orlando said he walked away with the mission of making sure "that this is not repeated."

Allied forces liberated Arbeiter and other Jews in April 1945, and he settled in the Bay State with his wife, Ann. He has three children, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

A slew of students lined up to ask Arbeiter questions. They wanted to know things like whether he ever lost faith in God, if he can forgive the Nazis, and whether he would ever return to Auschwitz.

He said he always had hope, he can forgive those who committed atrocities against him but he cannot forgive those who committed atrocities against others, and he has been back to Auschwitz (where there is now a museum) three times, most recently in July.

To see Israel Arbeiter on youtube.com, go to this Web link: youtube.com/watch?v=V-0PrcD1U64