The Goddess of Warsaw

Lena shoots the climax scene of her movie with her co-star, Jack Lyons, in which they are parting for good. Stan Moss, her director, asks her to shed a single tear, and Lena reminds Stan of her “no crying” clause in her ironclad contract.

While they are arguing, Lena notices an unfamiliar cameraman filming her and is immediately unsettled. Stan orders him to stop, and Lena registers that the silvery gray shade of his eyes seems familiar. She takes a break, promising that she will deliver the emotion Stan wants without the tears once she is back.

In 1946, Bina boards the SS Ernie Pyle to America. After two years on the run through northern Poland after escaping the ghetto, she ended up in Germany. Armed with Petra’s identity, she stayed in the Deggendorf DP camp for six months.

Aboard the ship, she is furious when she recognizes one of the faces and realizes that he is a Nazi named Heinrich “masquerading as a Jew” (236)—she remembers him shooting three young children who were caught smuggling food into the ghetto.

Bina strikes up a conversation with him and invites him to join her for a walk on the deck late at night. When he arrives, Bina stabs him and steals his money before pushing him overboard, stating that this is revenge for the Warsaw Ghetto.

Eleven takes later, Stan finally has the perfect shot of the climax scene. Everyone wraps up for the day, and Lena heads to a local dive bar. She sees the camera crew there and tries to engage the newcomer in conversation, but he is unresponsive. Lena is intrigued by his lack of interest in her. She asks around the next day and learns that his name is Michael Mills; he is new to everyone else, too.

Lena spots Michael alone in a coffee shop after work and approaches him again, but he remains dismissive. He mocks her “no crying” clause, claiming that she refuses to cry because she has no tears left to shed and insinuating that he knows about her past. A rattled Lena runs away but finds herself waiting for Michael at his hotel instead of heading back home. He arrives eventually and beckons her to his room.

Inside his room, Michael addresses Lena as “Bina.” Stunned, she demands to know who he is, and he reveals that he is Lukas’s brother, Michael Müller. Bina makes the connection between the last names Mills and Müller. Müller produces a photograph of the moment when Lukas forced Bina into shooting Jakub while Aleksander watched. Bina realizes that Müller was one of the cameramen in the ghetto. He further reveals that he believes Bina is behind Rolf Wagner’s death and says that he will be shadowing her every move henceforth.

Müller discloses how a number of Nazis, and others aligned with their views, are alive and well all over America. His aim is to expand their “cinematic presence” in the country. Müller gives Lena a script titled “THE GODDESS OF WARSAW” (255), claiming that it will be Lena’s next movie. It is the story of Leni Riefenstahl, a German filmmaker who created propaganda films for the Nazis; Lena is to play Leni. Müller further produces photographs of Stan in compromising sexual positions with a bevy of men. If Lena and Stan refuse to do the movie, Müller will expose Lena’s past and release these photographs of Stan.

Lena thinks back to how Stan was the filmmaker who gave her her first big break; they have made countless movies together since. From the beginning, Lena was grateful to have found a man who didn’t want to sleep with her and only wanted to mentor her. She has always known about Stan’s secret lifestyle, despite him being married with two children; however, he knows nothing about her past.

When Lena threatens to expose Müller’s true agenda, he shows her one more photograph of a red-headed set of twins. He reveals that the boy and girl are Aleksander and Tosia’s children and that the couple is now living in Israel as Ariel and Tamar Barak. If Lena doesn’t agree to his demands, Müller threatens to have them destroyed as well.

Lena meets with Stan and tells him the truth about her past, what she discovered about Operation Paperclip, and how Müller is blackmailing the two of them. Stan is shaken by Lena’s past and by the photographs that Müller has of him. Lena doesn’t divulge details of what Müller has on her but reassures Stan that she has known his secret for a long time and that his sexuality doesn’t matter to her.

Stan is horrified when he learns what Müller wants from them, claiming that a Nazi propaganda film would be “studio suicide.” Together, Lena and Stan decide that they will find a way to destroy Müller instead.

Filming begins in Germantown, Pennsylvania, after Stan gets studio approval on an altered script for the Leni Riefenstahl movie. Müller orders Lena and Stan around, and the two allow him to dominate the set, hoping to lull him into a false sense of security.

One day, while in the washroom, Lena overhears two women— Müller’s head of wardrobe and Mika, his personal assistant—discussing the location of Das Haus, a palatial mansion where Müller and other, powerful Nazis hold high-level meetings. They also mention how they have been recruiting Connie, Lena’s assistant, who has a crush on Paul Schweiger, the actor playing Jürgen Stroop. The women believe that Connie could be very useful.

Lena gives Connie a few extra days off before Thanksgiving. During this time off, Lena surreptitiously tails Connie’s activities in a car and watches her meet with Paul multiple times. One evening, she spots the couple meet up with Müller and Mika, and they drive up to a mansion that Lena surmises is Das Haus.

When Connie returns to work, she is polite but distant. Lena manages to snoop through Connie’s purse and finds a list of German delicacies sufficient to feed a party. Lena realizes that this is for the Nazi Christmas party at Das Haus; Connie has “officially crossed over” (284).

Lena confides in Stan about Das Haus and her plans to blow it up; she needs his help to obtain dynamite. To answer Stan’s questions, Lena finally tells him about how she escaped Warsaw: After posing as a Polish call-girl with Vladek’s help, Lena eventually escaped and joined the Polish resistance. Even within the resistance, men attempted to rape her, but she killed her assaulters. She eventually found herself sheltered in the barn of a Polish couple, but she had to sleep with the husband to stay alive and hidden.

The night that the Nazis surrendered, Lena killed the husband as well and lied to the wife by saying that he had died while trying to protect Lena from some looters. She eventually found her way to Germany and then on a ship to America.

Müller prepares to shoot the final scene in which the Great Synagogue is blown up after the Nazis’ victory over the Warsaw Ghetto. He orders all the Jews off set except for Lena and gives the crew a 30-minute break. Lena heads back to her trailer and tries to warn Connie to stay away from the set. However, Connie claims that the movie is the best thing to happen to her and quits as Lena’s assistant.

Lena returns to the set and watches Müller instruct Paul how to portray Stroop before he blew up the synagogue. Müller then dismisses Lena as he and the rest of his people prepare to toast their first film from inside the recreated synagogue; before she leaves, Müller calls out to her that his brother is still alive and well. Lena leaves the set as fast as she can, reflecting on how the alcohol they will be toasting with is laced with poison that she injected into the bottles the previous night. Minutes later, the synagogue set explodes, with all the Nazis trapped inside.