Of the 6,000-plus Holocaust survivors remaining in Queens, perhaps none is livelier than Rolf Montag. The 87-year-old former factory worker and labor activist lives alone in Briarwood, and still pays regular visits to his local gym and the Flushing pool, where seniors get a hearty discount. In 2008, six decades after he escaped to the United States from Germany by way of South Africa, Montag campaigned for Barack Obama.

He might still be working, too, if it weren't for a car accident nearly nine years ago.

It happened near his library. Montag, then 79, was working for a messenger service, making deliveries on foot, when he was hit by a car. He was not injured very badly, Montag said, but the incident did force him to retire.

These days, the octogenarian contents himself with exercising and frequent trips to the Forest Hills office of Selfhelp Community Services, the nation's leading provider of Nazi victim services.

The organization, which recently hosted a Passover seder for roughly 15 Holocaust survivors, serves a community that has seen its numbers dwindle quickly in recent years, said Elihu Kover, Selfhelp's vice president of Nazi victim services. (The organization provides a host of other senior services as well).

Kover estimates the number of survivors living in Queens at over 6,000. But the average age of survivors is approaching 80, Kover said, while the average age of those serviced by Selfhelp is closer to 85.

“It is a population in decline,” Kover said. At the same time, however, Queens remains home to many younger survivors in their '70s, meaning Selfhelp will stay busy providing care for them for years to come. “There's going to be survivors in need of care well past 2025,” he said.

By then the grainy black-and-white footage of Holocaust horrors will seem as remote and ancient as any old war of the past. But Montag, or his younger, fellow survivors at Selfhelp and elsewhere, will still be around to tell their stories.

Montag was born in southern Germany, near Frankfurt. In 1938, shortly before Hitler began his violent campaign against German Jews with the pogrom known as Kristallnacht, Montag was able to flee the country. At the age of 16, he left behind several relatives, among them his mother, who died at Auschwitz. (His sister escaped to London, where she later gave birth to her daughter in an air raid shelter).

He made his way to South Africa, joining a cousin there, and lived out the war before resettling in Queens in 1947. “When I came to Africa I couldn't speak English,” said Montag. “The first thing I learned was how to curse.” Today Montag speaks excellent English, and he has not forgotten how to curse, either. (Imagine what he thinks of the so-and-so who ran him over?)

“I very much like America,” Montag said, and why not? He found steady work in a series of factories, and went on to become an executive board member of his local union. Montag marched for civil rights in the 1960s, and campaigned for George McGovern in 1972. He volunteered as recently as two years ago for Obama, and remains an active volunteer at Selfhelp.

“I'm still an activist,” Montag said. “I haven't given up yet."