Skull Chapel
Skull Chapel in Czermna is a chapel situated in Kudowa-Zdrój, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland. This unusual chapel was built in 1776 by the local parish priest Wacław Tomaszek. It is the mass grave of people who died during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), three Silesian Wars (1740–1763), as well as of people who died because of cholera epidemics and hunger. Together with J. Schmidt and J. Langer, Tomaszek collected the casualties’ bones and put them in the chapel. Walls of this small, baroque church are filled with three thousand skulls, and there are also bones of another 21 thousand people hidden in the basement of it. Every bone in this place is authentic. Skulls of people who created the chapel are put in the centre of it and placed on the altar. It is the only such monument in Poland, and one of three in Europe.[citation needed] It is situated in one of the oldest villages in Kłodzko County, near Kudowa Zdrój, in the Lower Silesia, Poland.
