NEWTON -- There was a recent passing of the torch of sorts in Ann and Israel Arbeiter´s dining room.

Members of three generations were gathered to plan a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and the liberation of Jewish prisoners from the Nazis -- an event held every decade to honor local survivors and their American liberators. Everyone in the room knew why this year is special, but Arbeiter, 80, was the first to say it.

"This is the last one for the survivors. Ten years from now, there will be no survivors to make a dinner of this kind," he said. "There´s not going to be another."

Arbeiter heads the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston. The group is focusing on plans for the June 5 commemoration ceremony, rather than memorializing today´s 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, where 1 million Jews were murdered.

"For us, liberation day is the end of the war, when all the survivors were liberated," Arbeiter said. "Freedom is complicated, and one date on the calendar isn´t enough."

Arbeiter and his wife, Anna, were both imprisoned at Auschwitz and other camps as teenagers.

Arbeiter was liberated in April 1945, at the age of 20. Anna was freed from Bergen-Belsen at the age of 19.

Over the decades, Arbeiter has seen the survivors´ association dwindle from several hundred members to a few dozen.

This places the duty of carrying on the memory of the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust squarely on the shoulders of younger generations of Jews.

"There will be a 70th-anniversary commemoration, and as long as we are faithful to our responsibilities and the lessons of the Holocaust, there will be an 80th and a 90th. Unfortunately, we won´t have the survivors with us," said Alan Ronkin, 38, deputy director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston.

"We will have a much larger burden, and we are aware of that," Ronkin said. "We´ve built the memorials and we´ve built the museums, so their memories will live on and the world can think critically about this incredible human tragedy."

As ideas for the commemoration, to be held at Congregation Mishkan Tefila, were tossed around, the survivors listened carefully to the suggestions of the younger generation.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz might be a good choice for a speaker, suggested Matt Lebovic, 26, community relations associate for the Jewish council and the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. Levobic said the Cambridge lawyer and author would resonate with survivors´ children, who are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Arbeiter and fellow Holocaust survivor Stephan Ross, 74, nodded in agreement.

After last week´s planning meeting broke up, Arbeiter and Ross stayed to talk about the Holocaust survivor support group Arbeiter founded in 1950.

Boston-area Holocaust survivors first banded together in 1949 by forming the all-Jewish Hakoah soccer team. Jewish refugees in their early 20s living in Mattapan played against teams comprising young Italians from the North End, Poles from Chicopee, and Irish from Revere.

The young men gathered every weekend at the G&G deli on Blue Hill Avenue. Later, when women sought to be included, the New Americans Society was formed to help Holocaust survivors with housing, jobs, and application for citizenship. It also served as a center of social life for refugees. Over time, the group became the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Greater Boston, with Arbeiter at the helm.

The association now assists survivors in a different way -- providing the elderly men and women with companionship and healthcare advice.

But the most important focus is still Holocaust awareness. Arbeiter has made it his business to speak about his experiences to most anyone who asks. Over and over again, he tells his horrifying story of torture and loss and rolls up his left sleeve to show the tattoo, A-18651, that the Nazis inflicted upon him at Auschwitz.

The horrible memories hurt, but he will never stop sharing them.

"This is my duty and obligation. This is our life´s work."

He and Ross say they are distressed about how little young people seem to know about the war. A chat a few years ago with a class of students at Bentley College in Waltham showed that fewer than half of them could identify Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who conducted horrific medical experiments on concentration camp inmates, particularly children.

And there are public displays of ignorance and indifference, typi- fied by Britain´s Prince Harry, who recently appeared at a costume party in a German uniform with a swastika armband.

"This is so sad, a boy of this age from the queen´s family, putting on a uniform to aggravate people who suffered so much," said Ross, who is a founder of the New England Holocaust Memorial. "Why would a boy of that caliber do that? He hurts us who have survived with our lives by the skins of our teeth."

Rick Mann, 51, president of the Friends of the New England Holocaust Memorial, said that museums, memorials, and educational programs established by the survivors´ generation "bode well for the future of remembrance."

Mann is the son of the late Theodore Mann, longtime mayor of Newton.

The direct descendants of Holocaust survivors -- their grandchildren and great-grandchildren -- may turn out to be the most motivated messengers.

"I think they feel a tremendous obligation. As the children of survivors, their lives were profoundly affected by the Holocaust. It is part of their everyday lives, too," said Mann.

Younger people will have so many storytelling tools and technologies at their disposal -- the Internet has already revolutionized how people learn about the past. But it can also be a dangerous tool, manipulated by anti- Semites and Holocaust deniers.

"You can have one site put together by historians and, right next to it, another put together by crackpots," said Ronkin.

Today´s headlines daily provide a strong argument for keeping memories of the Holocaust alive.

"Unfortunately, we have enough modern examples of cruelty, hatred, and bigotry," he said. "We can point to them and draw parallels with the past." Erica Noonan can be reached at enoonan@globe.com. (Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company 01/27/05)

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston can be reached at www.jcrcboston.org.