The Goddess of Warsaw

Content Warning: This section discusses war and violence, death and murder, the Holocaust and antisemitism, anti-gay bias and violence, suicide, miscarriage, and sexual exploitation.

It is the year 2005 in Hollywood. Twenty-seven-year-old Sienna Hayes, Hollywood’s “It Girl,” meets the industry’s “Living Legend,” Lena Browning. Sienna dreams of directing Lena’s biopic. Unbeknownst to Sienna, Lena has chosen to meet with Sienna over everyone else because Lena believes that the starlet is malleable. Lena pretends to be uninterested, claiming that Sienna doesn’t know her at all.

In response to Sienna’s earnestness to learn more about Lena, the older actress reveals that Browning is not her real name but the make of the gun she used to assassinate her father’s killer. She has also killed more people in real life than in her movies. However, Sienna is intrigued rather than undeterred, so Lena agrees to work with Sienna as long as she can dictate how the movie ends.

Sabina “Bina” Blonski moves through the sewers of the Warsaw Ghetto, sandwiched between her brother-in-law, Aleksander Blonski, and her husband, Jakub Blonski, as they find a way to smuggle Bina to the outside. Bina is able to fool the Nazis with her looks, as she is a “tall, willowy, blond, blue-eyed Jew” (15).