Indiana Jones and the Ring of Death?

~I spent most of Saturday at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the North Carolina Museum of History. While I would have enjoyed the museums in any case, I was there as part of an assignment for a class I'm enrolled in, on the subject of how libraries and other institutions can be places of lifelong learning for adults. The professor scored us free passes to see the Dead Sea Scrolls traveling exhibit, which I was looking forward to.

At first, I thought the Scrolls exhibit was a bit of a letdown: the scroll fragments were tiny, and most of the exhibit was there to establish context for them, with information on ancient Israel and the cult that created the Scrolls. The room with the scrolls was dark and had ethereal music playing, theatrical effects which I found irritating rather than awe-inspiring. After pondering the exhibit for a couple of days, however, I've decided that I like it more than I did while I was there. After all, I did walk away from it knowing more than I did when I entered, and there were some interesting dioramas and other displays. Of course, the fact that I wasn't charged $22 certainly helped.

The most interesting thing I saw on my day of museums was actually not the scrolls, but rather a mysterious silver ring located in the military history exhibit of the History Museum. The permanent exhibit is titled "A Call To Arms", and documents the involvement of North Carolina soldiers throughout the history of the state. New since my visit to the museum last year was an expanded section on North Carolina soldiers in Iraq.

The ring that interested me, however, is in the World War II section. Take a look:













Creepy, isn't it? Notice the SS lightning bolts on either side, and the date "1946" on one side and "DACHAU" on the other. The history behind this object is brief but fascinating. It was handmade by a Nazi SS guard who worked at Dachau, the first of the infamous concentration camps where tens of thousands of prisoners were gassed or worked to death. The camp was liberated by Allied forces in 1945, and the SS guard was captured and later put on trial for crimes against humanity.

He made the ring while incarcerated, and gave it to an American soldier (from North Carolina) who had been guarding the German prisoners awaiting trial; apparently, the SS guard felt that the American had treated him humanely. What a story! In the words of a friend of mine, "This is how action movies begin." A mysterious ring, passed down through the family for generations, holding a terrible secret...I can almost hear the late Don LaFontaine in my head.

Unfortunately, details about the ring were frustratingly lacking while I was in the museum. What were the names of the SS guard and the North Carolinian solider? How did the ring get to the museum? Why was it donated? I wished there was a way I could find out at the museum, but I had little to go on. Later, I searched through the museum website, hoping for more details, and found the page for the ring...but it has even less information than what is actually written at the exhibit. So I emailed the head of collections, asking for more information. This morning, I received a reply (links added and spelling corrected by me):

"Mr. Dusto—this ring was donated by a North Carolinian from Scotland Neck in Halifax County who served as an enlisted solider in the US Army 1944-1946. While part of the Army of Occupation in Germany, he was selected to assist the judges at the Dachau War Tribunal Trials as needed. As such he often escorted the prisoners. This ring was made by one of the former guards at Dachau who was on trial who was later executed. The donor could not remember the name of the prisoner. The prisoner made it while in jail and gave it to the donor in appreciation for the humane treatment he received. Hope this information helps. Regards, Tom Belton, Curator of Military History, North Carolina Museum of History"

So, there was more to the story, as I suspected, but Mr. Belton's reply leaves a great deal out. What does he mean, "the donor could not remember the name of the prisoner"? Why not? Did the prisoner and the guard barely know each other, and the Nazi just gave it to him one day? Was the ring found in the soldier's estate after his death, without him saying much about it? Or perhaps...the soldier didn't want to remember the person who gave him the ring, and just wanted to get rid of an object attached to such hideous memories of what was done in the camps..?

I have the sudden urge to write a screenplay. In the meantime, to learn what Indiana Jones thinks of Nazis, click here.