The Goddess of Warsaw

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). It pains Jakub that Bina undertakes sex work outside the ghetto in exchange for food and medicine; however, Bina has grown numb to Jakub’s pain. She also secretly lusts after Aleksander.

As they identify a spot for Bina to emerge, she reflects on how all their lives have changed. They used to be members of Warsaw’s elite—wealthy, secular, Polish-speaking Jews. Aleksander was a painter, Bina was an actress, and Jakub was a journalist. Now, Bina uses her looks and acting skills for their survival in the ghetto.

In Warsaw, 1939, Bina takes the curtain call for the opening night of Romeo and Juliet alongside her best friend, Stanislaw “Stach Nowak” Sobieski. Bina is playing Juliet, Stach is playing Mercutio, and Stach’s secret lover, Mateusz, is playing Romeo. Bina only knows of the relationship because she accidentally overheard them being intimate with each other.

Stach belongs to a wealthy Polish family descended from royalty. His father, Baron Konrad Sobieski, dismisses Stach’s acting, as he believes that Stach will never play a leading man because he was born with a purple birthmark on his face.

As Bina, Stach, and the rest of the cast bow to the applause, the baron barges in with a regiment of soldiers and police, ordering Bina to leave the theater premises immediately. Stach unsuccessfully tries to defend Bina, but no one else speaks up for her. Before a heartbroken Bina leaves, she encourages Stach not to let his father rob him of everything and everyone he loves.

In the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, Bina privately reminisces about the luxurious life she once lived. She misses her father and reflects on how she is a lot like her mother—Bina believes that she is the “illegitimate” child of her father’s right-hand man, Pawel, who is blond haired and blue eyed like her. Bina hated her mother for this deception.

Bina eavesdrops on a secret meeting of the Oyneg Shabbos, a group creating an archive that documents the life of Jews in the ghetto. Jakub and Aleksander are both at this meeting. Jakub tells the rest of the group how the Nazis plan on sexually exploiting and trafficking women and children from the ghetto. The outraged members at the meeting, including Aleksander, demand that they act. Jakub stresses the importance of the archives and tries to formulate a plan.

Bina barges in and demands that she be made the “madame” of the place where the Nazis intend to sexually exploit the girls, in a bid to protect them as much as possible and find ways to resist. Jakub is angry and mortified at this, but Bina insists that they must do more than write. To Jakub’s dismay, her idea appears better received than his own.

Bina hides behind the kitchen door and watches Aleksander bathe through the gap in the bathroom door. Bina and her best friend, Karina, had met the Blonski brothers at a fundraiser dance. Bina was immediately attracted to Aleksander; however, when she feigned a lack of interest, Aleksander turned his attention to Karina. A disappointed Bina danced with Jakub instead, and both girls went on to marry their respective dance partners from that evening. A few months later, the Nazis invaded Poland. Bina’s father was killed, and Aleksander’s home was burned down with Karina and his daughter inside.

Aleksander senses Bina’s presence and calls out to her; Bina pretends that she arrived to apologize to him for barging in on the meeting earlier. Aleksander confides in Bina that he agrees with her views and that he has joined the ZOB unit—the resistance fighters within the ghetto. Jakub doesn’t know. Bina tries to persuade Aleksander to take her to a meeting, but he resists.

Bina heads to where she believes the ZOB headquarters are. She recognizes one of the teenaged boys tasked with guarding the place—Eryk Behrman, whose 10-year-old sister, Dina, is in Bina’s acting class. Their parents, once famous violinists in the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, used to play in the ghetto as well before they were seized from the center of Muranowski Square a couple of months ago.

Bina demands to meet with Zelda, and Eryk leads her to a basement bunker. Zelda, a commanding woman in her twenties, is unimpressed by Bina’s arrival and doesn’t believe that the “beauty queen” can be of any help. Bina asserts that she can use her looks to smuggle in weapons and ammunition for the resistance, but Zelda wonders how this will work if Jakub doesn’t even know that Bina is part of the ZOB. Jakub does not hold the fighters in high esteem, while Zelda believes that intellectuals like him are a part of the problem because they refuse to retaliate.

Bina defends Jakub’s intentions and notes that his efforts are admirable. However, she does disagree with his refusal to fight and claims that she herself is ready to do so. Zelda tasks her with a mission to prove her worth.

The Nazis release a list of all the girls whom they will forcibly take from the ghetto for sexual exploitation. As soon as the decree comes out, Bina meets with the Judenrat and Nazi representatives without Jakub’s knowledge and presents her case for overseeing the girls.

Jakub cannot stop thinking and talking about the list at home. Bina, who has been tasked with a specific mission by Zelda, claims that she is heading over to the Behrmans’ to deliver soup. Jakub walks her there, while Aleksander prepares a game of cards to occupy Jakub when he returns.

At the Behrmans’, Bina waits with Dina until Peter, a teenaged boy who is also part of the ZOB, arrives with a valise for Bina. Bina changes into the clothes sent by Zelda before she sets off, telling Peter to stay with Dina. Bina joins Eryk in a car driven by Henryk, a man who drives for the Judenrat’s vice chair. Bina’s mission is to kill one of the Judenrat, a man named Kapitan, who is “a Jew turned policeman turned Nazi collaborator” (64).

An inebriated Kapitan exits Manny’s Bar, one of the last-standing entertainment establishments in the ghetto. Bina begins walking as he does, pretending to be anxious that she is breaking curfew. Kapitan stops her and demands sex in return for not punishing her. Bina pretends to yield, and while Kapitan is distracted, she shoots him in the chest, claiming that this is for all the Jews he betrayed. While the life ebbs out of Kapitan, Eryk appears and stabs him with his father’s violin bow, in revenge for his parents. As Bina leads Eryk away, he makes Bina promise to look after Dina if anything ever happens to him.

Zelda raises a Sabbath toast to Bina for killing Kapitan and tasks her with her next kill: a man named Dabrowski, who oversees the workers at a sweatshop in the ghetto and is especially cruel and traitorous. However, since this kill will be in the open, Bina is required to leave the ghetto immediately after.

Aleksander begs Zelda to give him the assignment instead, but Zelda claims that she has a different task for him. In confidence, Zelda tells Bina that she will be put up in a safe house on the Aryan side with the help of an arm of the Polish resistance called Żegota. She will be collaborating with them to smuggle weapons into the ghetto.

Bina brings up the girls she was supposed to help take care of, but Zelda states that they are fated for death. However, Zelda promises that none of the girls on the list will be sexually abused on her watch. She instructs Bina to go home, pack a bag, and bid her husband goodbye; after Bina’s mission, her death will be faked, and she will be given a new identity. Aleksander knows of this, but Jakub must remain in the dark.

Bina lies to an angry Jakub that she has been chosen to serve as a courier on the Aryan side. However, Jakub deduces that Bina is the one who killed Kapitan and suspects that she and Aleksander are working for the “radicals.” Bina lies to protect Aleksander, claiming that it was all her. As an attempt at reconciliation, she offers to take Jakub’s archives with her to get his work into the right hands. As the couple embrace for what Bina is sure is the last time, she pleads with Jakub to “[j]ust live” (85).

As per Zelda’s plan, Bina strides into the factory and shoots Dabrowski dead in front of all the factory workers. Immediately after, a young woman named Tosia from the ZOB gives Bina a suitcase, and she is transferred out of the ghetto through a combination of stealth and bribery. By nightfall, news spreads within the ghetto that Bina killed Dabrowski and was subsequently murdered herself.

Bina is relocated to a tiny attic room in an apartment building on the Aryan side. She is set up in her new space by a Polish couple who do not reveal their names. After four days of Bina waiting in the room, Aleksander arrives. He reveals that two days after Dabrowski’s murder, the police came for him and Jakub. They were beaten up and assigned to be put onto the next train headed out. Aleksander managed to escape, but Jakub is headed to Treblinka.

Zelda has sent Aleksander with fresh instructions, but Bina coaxes a broken, guilt-ridden Aleksander to sleep for a while. As he sleeps, Bina is overcome with remorse even as she reflects on how Zelda needs her now more than ever.

Bina wakes Aleksander up a few hours later. Once he has eaten, they discuss the next steps. To Bina’s envy, Aleksander speaks admiringly about Tosia, who was once a chemistry student in college and has been helping the resistance make bombs. Aleksander then gives Bina an address for a meeting later that day. Zelda believes that the final assault on the ghetto will take place on Hitler’s birthday, and the fighters are resolved to arm themselves and resist as much as possible. Bina is to meet with a man nicknamed “Motyl,” which means “butterfly,” from the Żegota. She is to obtain whatever weapons she can from him.

Bina heads out for her meeting dressed in a sophisticated dress provided by Zelda and with papers that identify her as “Irina Zieliński.” Bina heads to a townhouse where a woman meets her and takes her inside to meet Motyl. To Bina’s shock, Motyl turns out to be Stach—a nickname chosen for his butterfly-shaped birthmark—and the old friends embrace.

Stach is overjoyed to find Bina alive and asks about the rest of Bina’s family. She reveals that her father was beaten to death, while the rest of them were thrown into the ghetto. Bina’s mother, sister, and uncle were sent to the camps shortly after, and now Jakub is also headed there.

Stach fills Bina in on his story: Several months after Bina was taken, Stach was in a production of Hamlet, playing the lead role for the first time. Just as happened with Bina, the baron stormed in during the dress rehearsal and did to Mateusz exactly what he did to Bina. Mateusz was beaten before being transported to Auschwitz, where he was tortured for his sexuality. Stach eventually bribed someone to kill Mateusz to end his daily torture.

The same night, once the baron revealed that he knew the truth about Stach, Stach left home with his mother’s help—she gave him enough gold and money from the family vault to do more than survive. Instead of running away, he decided to use his resources to establish the Żegota.

Bina and Stach discuss Zelda’s request for weapons and ammunition. Stach agrees to provide what they need on the condition that Bina stays out of the ghetto fight and keeps herself alive. He also divines that her eagerness to return to the ghetto is because of Aleksander; Stach has always known of Bina’s feelings for him.

Before Bina leaves, Stach confides in her that his aim is not only to save the Jews but also to destroy his father’s Nazi empire and eventually kill him. In return for Stach’s provision of ammunition, Bina promises to help him do so.