Born in Tennessee to a poor farm family, Robert Hays never imagined that he would play a liberating role in one of the largest mass crimes to ever take place.  During the 30s, Robert joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, where he met his future wife.  Not long after meeting, the two were married in September of 1940.  One year after this joyful time, the bombings in Pearl Harbor pulled America into World War II.  In 1942 Robert was among the first American men to be drafted into the war efforts.  He was involved in many war invasions in many places, such as North Africa, Salerno, Anzio, and southern France.  After his time overseas came to an end, he went on to tell these stories of his time at war to his family.  He often told the story of how he was wounded in Anzio.  However, one event stuck with him, and only him, until his death in 1981:  Dachau.  Robert had been among the first liberators at the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945.  For reasons that will never be fully understood, Robert kept this experience to himself.  It was only after his death that his son, Tony, found the old photograph in his father’s wallet with the word “Dachau” written on the back.  The image showed many skeletal bodies piled up in the concentration camp’s crematorium mortuary.  After finding the photo, Tony began to wonder why his father kept that, of all photos, so close to him for all those years.  It was only after a trip to Dachau that Tony began to understand.  The photograph was not a reminder of the events Robert had witnessed all those years ago.  It was proof that human beings do have the ability to commit such an evil.  Even more, it served as a reminder of the Holocaust in order to prevent another atrocity of this magnitude from occurring again.

http://teachinghistorymatters.com/