Pustków Osiedle

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Pustków Osiedle is a village in southern Poland, in the Gmina Dębica, Dębica County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship. The “osiedle” (housing estate) was built in the 1930s and is closely linked with the nearby village of Pustków. It is the smallest village in the district and covers about 150 hectares; the larger Pustków village covers about 2,285 hectares.

The history of Pustków Osiedle is tied to the Central Industrial Area, a major public works program in interwar Poland. Before the mid‑1930s, Pustków Osiedle did not exist. A small settlement called Pustków stood near the Sandomierz Forest. In 1937, construction began about three kilometers south of Pustków, starting with clearing trees to make way for a factory area. A Lignoza plastics and ammunition factory was opened by Lignoza S.A. Katowice – Wytwórnia Pustków. Workers’ housing and blocks for managers were built.

Production began in April 1939. On September 8, 1939, German forces occupied the area. The Germans completed the flats and used them as military barracks, moving all machinery to the Third Reich.

From 1940 to 1944 there was a German labor camp near Pustków Osiedle, known as Heidelager Pustków. About 15,000 Jews, Poles and Soviet POWs were murdered there. Prisoners were forced to work on developing the V‑2 rocket. The SS controlled the area from Mielec to Kolbuszowa. The camp operated until July 23, 1944, and a monument on the Hill of Death (Góra Śmierci, Mount Królowa Góra) commemorates the victims.

After the war, the factory expanded and began producing plastics again in 1946. In the Polish People's Republic, the plant was called Zakłady Tworzyw Sztucznych ERG Pustków and made glue, polyester resin, bakelite, laminates and other plastics. The settlement grew with new housing, a workers’ hostel, a house of culture with a cinema, a health center, a swimming pool and sports facilities for the Chemik club, established in 1954.

In 1992 ERG Pustków was privatized, and in 2009 the plant was renamed Lerg SA.