Zelik Frydman, 79, bent down so the children could ask their questions into his ear.
He's hard of hearing, but he wanted to be sure to answer all their queries.
The children lined up to talk to the Holocaust survivor -- many shaking his hand or hugging him.
Frydman made a promise to his brother Volvel 63 years ago, on the day Volvel was murdered at a concentration camp, that he would tell people what happened to him and the other members of their family.
Yesterday, the Toronto man kept that promise by speaking to 400 people, mostly children, at the London Jewish Community Centre about what he endured during the Second World War.
Many of the children in the audience wept.
Frydman recalled what his brother told him just before he watched the Nazis kill him.
"He said to me, 'I'm not lucky. They're going to shoot (me). I hope you will be lucky and you will survive. Don't forget to tell them the tragedy,' " Frydman recalled.
His daughter-in-law, Rachelle Frydman, a teacher at the London Community Hebrew Day School, helped tell his emotional story to the children, but didn't reveal she was related to him until the end.
"A day does not go by when he doesn't think about his brother and his parents. He thanks you for fulfilling one of his life's missions to tell his story as he promised his brother," Rachelle told the children.
When Rachelle asked them to give her father-in-law a hero's welcome as he took the stage with his wife of 52 years, Renie, the crowd gave him a standing ovation.
Many hands shot up as Rachelle asked for questions.
"Did you ever meet Hitler?"
"Do you have a tattoo from the camp."
"What did it feel like in the camp?"
"What did you eat?"
"Did you go to Auschwitz?"
Frydman spent time in seven concentration camps, but not Auschwitz, before he was liberated by the Russians in 1945.
One of his sisters also survived and sponsored Frydman to come to Canada in 1952. His parents and four siblings died.
In a reception afterward, the children continued to ask him questions.
"I thought he was really neat," said Matt Roman, a Grade 7 pupil at Clara Brenton public school. "I learned a lot."
The program was held as part of Holocaust Awareness Week.
