In these woods near the mushroom centre of Salaspils, the Nazis ran a concentration camp of 30 barrack buildings that held over 20 000 people captive from 1941 to 1944. Jews and resistance fighters were kept in abominable conditions in this "labour correctional camp"; 3 000 perished here. The memorial that stands in this huge clearing consists of a sloped concrete wall symbolising the boundary between life and death, and bearing the words "beyond these gates, the land groans".