56 pages • 1 hour read
Lisa BarrThe Goddess of Warsaw
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Sabina “Bina” Blonski/Lena Browning
Content Warning: This section discusses death and murder, the Holocaust and antisemitism, and anti-gay bias and violence.
Bina is the narrator and protagonist of the story. She was born and raised in Warsaw in a wealthy, elite Jewish family. She was a talented and aspiring actress in this life, and she relies on these skills for survival when she is sent to the Warsaw Ghetto, along with the other Jews in Warsaw, following the Nazi invasion of Poland. Bina’s “Aryan” looks—she is tall, blonde, and blue eyed—also help her survive, both during wartime and later in Hollywood, where she finds great success as the actress Lena Browning.
Bina is an intelligent, willful, and determined woman. A talented actress, she is able to use her skills in stressful situations while in the ghetto. Bina initially smuggles in resources from the “Aryan” side, a task that requires not only acting skills but also courage and presence of mind. She later joins the ZOB and continues to work performing covert operations, smuggling in weapons for the resistance. Bina’s motivation to do so comes from her determination to survive, and help her loved ones survive as well, at all costs.
Bina’s strength of character is complemented by her stoicism, which translates into a willingness to stretch and bend the bounds of morality, especially in the context of survival. As a smuggler, she frequently trades sex work for resources, unbothered by her husband’s distaste at this. Bina believes that certain social rules and norms are rendered moot in extreme circumstances, and life in the ghetto qualifies for this exception. Similarly, she is comfortable with violence when she believes that it serves a just end. She carries out multiple murders for the ZOB on Zelda’s orders, and later, as Lena, she continues to hunt down and kill former Nazis in the United States. Bina’s final act as Lena is to expose and kill the man responsible for her biggest heartbreak, Lukas Müller, who killed her husband, Jakub, and distanced Bina from the rest of her community.
Lukas not only kills Jakub but also exposes Bina’s true parentage and secret affair to her community: She is the “illegitimate” daughter of a Polish Nazi supporter, Baron Konrad Sobieski; she also slept with Aleksander, Jakub’s brother. This leads Bina to be morally judged and ostracized by the rest of her community, including Aleksander himself. Lukas’s act is a defining one in Bina’s life: From this point on, justice and revenge are deeply and personally intertwined in Bina’s mind. While, until this point, she fought for the resistance, the choices and decisions that Bina makes going forward are not merely to survive or to resist oppression: They are to exact personal justice through revenge. As Lena, Bina specifically targets and kills the Nazis on the Operation Paperclip list whom she had personal contact with. Furthermore, no amount of wealth and fame can bring her peace until she avenges both Jakub and herself by killing Lukas.
While Bina’s character arc appears to be rooted in exacting justice through revenge for her community, the heart of it is actually personal redemption. Bina believes that she is a bad person because of the ease with which she is able to engage in deception and violence. This is exacerbated by Jakub’s disapproval of her role in the resistance and everyone else’s contempt at her affair with Aleksander. However, what Bina truly desires is love. She has been in love with Aleksander since she first met him, and this love is unwavering throughout her life. A part of her finds deep peace after killing Lukas; however, she is only finally able to cry for the first time after the war when she reconciles with Aleksander and learns that he has loved her all along, too.
Jakub and Aleksander Blonski
Jakub and Aleksander are brothers. At the start of the novel, Jakub is Bina’s husband, and Aleksander is married to Bina’s close friend, Karina. Jakub and Karina both perish in the war, while Aleksander and Bina make it out but go on to live separate lives.
Bina’s relationship with each of the brothers is complicated. She saw Aleksander first and has been in love with him ever since. However, she ended up marrying Jakub after Aleksander expressed interest in her friend instead. Thus, Bina has never fully loved Jakub. Despite the only glimpses of their marriage taking place in the ghetto, Bina and Jakub’s incompatibility is clear. Jakub resents Bina’s methods of ensuring their survival, whether it is through sex work and smuggling or violent resistance. Bina, in turn, disagrees with the importance that Jakub places on documentation as a medium of resistance.
However, Bina’s disapproval of and negativity toward Jakub is also laced with guilt, especially because of her feelings toward Aleksander. This guilt is compounded when Jakub returns alive from Treblinka, as Bina and Aleksander have slept together, believing that Jakub was dead. Jakub’s death, and the fact that he discovers Bina’s betrayal just before he dies, leaves a huge scar on Bina’s conscience for the rest of her life. This shapes her desire for revenge until she eventually kills Lukas.
Bina’s dynamic with Aleksander is the opposite of that with Jakub. Like Bina, Aleksander, too, believes in violent resistance and sees the value that Bina brings to the ZOB. He also reciprocates Bina’s feelings for him, although she only learns this much later. Aleksander stays away from Bina since he is bound by social norms and loyalty—Bina is married to his brother. Therefore, while Bina truly connects with Aleksander, she cannot be with him, for the same reasons that she must stay with Jakub despite her sharing no compatibility with him.
Bina’s disloyalty to Jakub is also contrasted with her unwavering love for Aleksander. She continues to love Aleksander for years and from afar, despite having no contact with him after she leaves the ghetto, and later learning that he has settled in Israel with a wife and family. Bina’s love is finally rewarded in the Epilogue when Aleksander visits her and acknowledges that their feelings for each other were true, after all—this is the final and personal redemption that she always desired.
Stanislaw “Stach Nowak” Sobieski and Stan Moss
Stach and Stan are two men who play important and similar roles in Bina’s life. Stach is Bina’s best friend during her life before the war. The son of Polish royalty, Stach is an actor like Bina; he is also secretly gay. Both of these aspects bring him into conflict with his father, Baron Konrad Sobieski, who dismisses his acting career and has disdain for his sexuality. Stach is deeply affected by Bina’s removal to the ghetto, which is orchestrated by the baron. He eventually joins the Polish resistance after the baron has his lover sent to a concentration camp. Through his resistance work, he comes into contact with Bina again.
As Motyl, the leader of the Polish resistance group Żegota, Stach is instrumental in helping Bina obtain weaponry for the resistance fighters. He and Bina regard each other as family and are united in their desire for revenge upon the baron. Ironically, Bina later discovers that she and Stach were related by blood as well, as her mother had an affair with the baron and she is the baron’s “illegitimate” daughter. Bina’s murder of the baron is motivated by his actions toward not just her family but Stach as well.
Stan is the director who gives Bina, as Lena Browning, her first break in Hollywood. The two make multiple successful movies together and grow exceptionally close over time. Bina and Stan’s friendship mirrors her relationship with Stach more than in just how close they are: Like Stach, Stan, too, is involved in the world of acting, albeit in film. Stan, too, is secretly gay for fear of retribution and censure. Additionally, just as Stach aids Bina in resistance operations like the Great Synagogue and the ZOB’s demands, Stan helps Lena take down Müller and his gang. The parallels between their characters are even underlined by their similar first names. Stach and Stan both serve as the emotional support and companionship that Bina needs in trying times; her relationships with each of them showcase her vulnerability and loyalty.
Lukas and Michael Müller
Lukas and Michael (referred to as Müller) are brothers belonging to the Nazi Party, and both of them affect Bina’s life in significant ways. Lukas and Müller are the antagonists in Bina’s story.
Bina first encounters Lukas when he is purportedly working as a Nazi double agent for the Żegota; he is insinuated to be Stach’s lover. However, Lukas betrays Stach and the resistance movement and later hunts down Bina and her ZOB unit within the ghetto. Lukas’s betrayal affects the people Bina loves most dearly: Stach and Aleksander. His betrayal leads to Starch’s capture and death, and he exposes Bina’s affair and true parentage to everyone in the ZOB, which earns her their disgust and censure. Additionally, by killing Jakub, Lukas ensures a deep rift between Bina and Aleksander. This ignites Bina’s lifelong desire for revenge to obtain justice for herself and her loved ones, and she is ultimately satisfied after she finally exposes and kills Lukas years later.
Müller arrives in Bina’s life when she is Lena Browning. He attempts to blackmail her into making a Nazi propaganda film, but Lena and Stan work together to ensure his destruction. However, Müller’s role, though short-lived, is an important one in the story: He exemplifies how the existence of antisemitism, even immediately after WWII, was the unfortunate reality. This is underlined by Müller’s ability to live a comfortable life in America, and even collect like-minded associates around him, until his eventual defeat at Lena and Stan’s hands. Additionally, Müller is how Lena learns that Lukas is still alive, which ensures that the desire for revenge continues to burn inside her until the very end.
