As you wander through the Jewish cemetery, you’ll likely come out of the trees to this wide open field in the southern portion. It’s both a beautiful and haunting sight: with small plaques sitting in rows throughout the grass. This is where most of the people who died in the Łódź Ghetto are buried: an estimated 45,000 victims between 1940-1944. It’s not necessarily a mass grave – each person was buried in their own grave – but it’s similar due to just how far this space spans and how many were buried here. Under this grassy field are buried thousands of bodies, and thanks to diligent record-keeping, many of the graves can be identified today. However, the farther into the field you walk, the fewer markers you’ll find and more unmarked graves under the ground. 
Though not everyone who died in the ghetto was buried here – some were buried in other parts of the cemetery – walking through this field is a harrowing experience, not unlike walking through Gettysburg in the US. It truly tells you the scale of lives lost in Poland’s second biggest Ghetto.