In the summer of 1994, my family and I traveled to France. While there, we visited the World War II memorial at Omaha Beach. The Omaha Beach war memorial consists of a large cemetery, where the Allied soldiers who fought and died in the Battle of Normandy have been laid to rest. If you visit the site, you can see the beach from the top of a steep hill, which overlooks the English Channel. Visitors are permitted to walk down to the beach. There is a narrow footpath, which winds down the hill and eventually falls away in to the sea. The hill is covered with a variety of thick shoreline vegetation: weeds and grasses, shrubs and mosses.

My brothers and I were interested in walking down to the beach, and so we looked to see where the footpath began. We followed a stone wall, which ran along the top of the hill, until we came to a gate. The gate was unlocked, however, fastened to it was a small sign which read in French, German, and English: “BEWARE OF WILD BOAR.” We found this sign to be most peculiar. On the one hand, we couldn’t understand why a wild boar would choose to roam in an area which attracted such a large tourist population. On the other hand, we couldn’t understand why the French government would allow a wild boar to run loose on the grounds of the one of the nation’s most revered historical sites.

As we stood in front of the gate, staring at the sign, a young boy came up behind us, clutching the hand of an elderly gentleman, who appeared to be the boy’s grandfather. Noticing the sign, the boy turned to his grandfather and said something in French. His grandfather responded in a voice which, to me, sounded quite solemn. I do not speak French, but my brother, Derek, is fluent in the language. My brothers and I let the boy and his grandfather go ahead of us, and after they had gone beyond hearing distance, I turned to Derek and asked, “What were they talking about?” My brother paused for a moment, appearing to be somewhat astonished. Finally, he began to explain.

“The boy had asked his grandfather about the boar. Now, I may have misunderstood, but I thought I heard the old man say that the boar has roamed this hill for the past fifty years, hunting the ghosts of the Nazi soldiers who died here. The spirits of the Nazis have been condemned to this place. They are seen only by the boar, which relentlessly pursues them for all eternity. No one has ever seen the boar, but many have heard it on dark, moonless nights, screaming its message of divine retribution: that all those who in life were consumed with hatred are now and forever consumed by it.”