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Lead Children on Netflix’s real-life inspiration explained
Need to know
Lead Children revolves around a woman’s fight to put an end to a horrific 1970s scandal.
Everything there is to know about Lead Children on Netflix’s real-life inspiration
- Lead Children, a six-part Polish drama that was released on Netflix last month, is about Dr Jolanta Wadowska-Krol (played by Joanna Kulig) discovering that children in the 1970s in Silesia – now Slask – were suffering from severe health issues including neurological damage. What made it even worse was the fact that she found out that these illnesses were caused by industrial lead poisoning thanks to the local smelter.
- Jolanta faced plenty of pushback from the Communist regime who were desperate to protect the thriving industrial industry at all costs but she doesn’t give up. While Lead Children is a drama, it is based on a true story that was inspired by Dr Jolanta Wadowska-Krol‘s actions, as well as the book of the same name by author Michal Jedryka.
- After doing everything she could to publicise what was happening to the children in the area, Jolanta’s efforts did lead to change. Not only were the affected children finally diagnosed and treated, her work also prompted the demolition of the homes closest to the smelter with affected families moved to safer areas.
- Talking to Tudum about playing the heroic doctor, actress Joanna Kulig shared: “Lead Children shows resistance to change and the strength one must find within oneself to oppose it. In the character of Jola Wadowska-Król, I saw above all honesty, extraordinary courage, persistence, and uncompromising nature…It was a fascinating, intense, and exhausting job, but precisely because of that, a true one.”
- Dr Wadowska-Krol was thanked for her important work in 2021 when the University of Silesia awarded her an honorary doctorate. Having retired in 2011, she later humbling told the publication Gazeta Wyborcza: “It was my duty to treat [the children], no matter what. It wasn’t heroism, but duty.”
READ FULL STORY: Is Lead Children on Netflix based on a true story?
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