This just struck me as so bizarre, a desert in central europe of all places, I mean in Poland, which is so green normally!(Polish: Pustynia Błędowska) is an area of sands between Błędów (part of Dąbrowa Górnicza in Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union) and the village of Klucze in Poland. The area lies mainly on the Silesian Highlands in the Silesian Voivodeship. Area 32 km².The Bledowska Sands are the largest (in Central Europe) accumulation of loose sand away from any sea, deposited thousands of years ago by a melting glacier. The appearance of a desert landscape has been created since the Middle Ages, as an accidental effect of mining (zinc, silver, coal), but the specific geological structure has been of big importance - the average thickness of the sand layer is about 40 meters (maximum 70 meters), which made the fast and deep drainage very easy. In the recent years the sands have started to shrink. The phenomenon of mirages has been known to exist there.[citation needed]During the Second World War the area was used by the German Afrika Korps for training and testing equipment before deployment in Africa.