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elizabethh724 's review for:
The Goddess of Warsaw
by Lisa Barr
Lisa Barr is a very gifted writer, I absolutely loved Woman on Fire, a book that dealt with stolen art by Nazis, but was peripheral enough that I could read it without being triggered. Having gone to study Holocaust history in Europe and tour concentration camps, including Auschwitz, it's very hard for me to read anything adjacent to this topic. But I mostly really enjoyed The Goddess of Warsaw. While some of the events were based on actual history, we have fictional Bina Blonski, a young married woman who is an actress, who has been in the Warsaw Ghetto for 2 years and time is running out. The Nazis are going to send everyone left to Treblinka, which means certain death. Bina has been smuggling in food and medicine by bartering her body and her looks (blonde and blue-eyed). Soon, she is working with resistance fighters and killing Nazi collaborators.
We meet her first as a famous actress who has lived as Lena Browning, meeting a young popular actress named Sienna who wants to produce her life story. Sienna doesn't know the true story just yet, and we learn with her how Bina survived the ghetto and came to America. The astounding bravery and terror were soaked into the bones of this book. I was riveted, even though parts were hard to read.
The transition from the ghetto to post-war life in the 1950s was jarring to me as a reader. While the author fills in the blanks, its true horror is the Nazi regime still lingering in the background, trying to regain power and influence. It's particularly relevant today and frightening how easy it would be to convince gentiles that Jews should not only be hated but erased from existence. It's definitely satisfying to see evil men be put down with her signature saying.
The main character's reunion with people who helped along the way or that were rescued gave me a sense of closure. It was sad to me the last words that Aleksandr said to Bina before the end of ghetto life. She lost her entire family, and the man she loved turned on her. No wonder she had a no crying clause. 4/5☆ trigger warning for description of abuse, violence directed at Jewish people, particularly children and women, blatant antisemitism. I would say it's close to 4.5 stars.
We meet her first as a famous actress who has lived as Lena Browning, meeting a young popular actress named Sienna who wants to produce her life story. Sienna doesn't know the true story just yet, and we learn with her how Bina survived the ghetto and came to America. The astounding bravery and terror were soaked into the bones of this book. I was riveted, even though parts were hard to read.
The transition from the ghetto to post-war life in the 1950s was jarring to me as a reader. While the author fills in the blanks, its true horror is the Nazi regime still lingering in the background, trying to regain power and influence. It's particularly relevant today and frightening how easy it would be to convince gentiles that Jews should not only be hated but erased from existence. It's definitely satisfying to see evil men be put down with her signature saying.
The main character's reunion with people who helped along the way or that were rescued gave me a sense of closure. It was sad to me the last words that Aleksandr said to Bina before the end of ghetto life. She lost her entire family, and the man she loved turned on her. No wonder she had a no crying clause. 4/5☆ trigger warning for description of abuse, violence directed at Jewish people, particularly children and women, blatant antisemitism. I would say it's close to 4.5 stars.