This is no ordinary ruin. Sauersack is a chilling monument to wartime history, the Nazi machine, and human suffering, which has been swallowed up by the wilderness of the Ore Mountains for over 80 years. It all began in 1940. Nazi Germany desperately needed tin for its arms industry, so the Berlin-based company Zinnbergbau Sudetenland decided to build a modern underground mine and a giant ore processing plant right here. Alongside the mine, a prisoner-of-war camp (part of Stalag XIII B) was built. The camp housed up to 500 Soviet prisoners and about 150 French prisoners, along with Italians and Poles. In addition to the prisoners, as many as 200 skilled German workers and a few Czech craftsmen worked there. In 1947, a final decision was made. All valuable machinery and technology were transported to Příbram. The shafts were sealed with concrete, and the mine was deliberately flooded with groundwater. The skeleton of the processing plant is indeed monumental, but the concrete is crumbling after decades of harsh winters. Watch out for protruding fittings and unexpected holes in the floor. The same applies to the surrounding area, which is full of peat bogs.

After World War II, the building was nationalized and began to serve medical purposes. Initially, it functioned as a children’s sanatorium; later, it was converted into a long-term care facility under the jurisdiction of St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno. The sanatorium’s doors closed for good around 2005. Modern medicine simply didn’t fit into the historic corridors of the Art Nouveau villa; the high ceilings couldn’t be heated, operations were uneconomical, and the building no longer met hygiene standards. Almost nothing remains of the original furnishings. For many years, the building was used by homeless people and vandals. This place is relatively well-visited and is one of the most well-known spots in the urban exploration world, but it is certainly worth seeing. The building is not guarded in any way.