The Goddess of Warsaw

by Lisa Barr

The most memorable caption that still makes me chuckle was splashed across the front page of the Los Angeles Times: LENA BROWNING’S EYEBROWS STEAL THE SHOW. Of course, I framed it. And yet, these brows, once lush statement makers, are now wilted. That’s the curse of having possessed luminous beauty. It fades too quickly before everyone’s eyes—and all you have left is shadow, a silhouette of what was once exceptional.

This is not just about you—it’s about control. It’s about teaching aspiring actresses that they can be the leading lady of their own careers.”

“Let’s be clear. I am not a star. I am a comet—a ball of gas, rock, and debris camouflaged in a spray of light.” My gaze narrows as if she were a lowly grip on my set. “Here’s what you don’t know, Miss Hayes, what the Enquirer has not yet uncovered . . . Browning is not my real name. It’s the make of the gun I used to kill the Nazi who pistol-whipped my father to death.”

Admittedly, with her flawless skin and sharp cheekbones, she is the perfect physical match to play the younger me—a woman who could seduce with her lashes while picking your pocket. An actress renowned for her Waspy looks but who is really a Jew. A woman who slept with countless men but loved only one. An assassin who killed for good reason and didn’t think twice about the blood on her hands, only about the blood that stained her dress, because at the time she didn’t own another one.

This war—this brutal attack against us—has changed me, destroyed what was once good, sensible, faithful.

The only way to survive this endless nightmare is to pretend that our past, the lives we once thought belonged to us forever, never existed. This is who we are now: smugglers, fugitives, burglars—those dregs of society we once called criminals.

Survival is not heroic; it is ugly. All those things you would never do in a normal, moral, refined life is now your only way of life.

Thirty percent of Warsaw’s population was Jewish, the largest Jewish community in Europe. But they have murdered so many of us at this point—including at least 99 percent of our children.

💔

I should have earned an award for my acting performances. The only person with whom I couldn’t pretend was me.

Funny, how war both entraps and frees you. What’s the point of niceties, manners, morals, and suppressed emotion when you could die at any given moment?

I am here, free, and hell is within walking distance. Is this what it looks like, feels like, to everyone who is not a Jew?

“Once you decide you are no longer a lamb but a wolf, everything changes.”

But sometimes, there are things bigger than you. Sometimes there are moments greater than your own small life. Instead of running away I decided to run toward.

“Where are your shoes?” he asks. I manage to look down at my mud-soaked feet and laugh between my tears. Everyone breaks out in laughter. It’s not funny, but it’s ghetto funny.

Can he see the half woman, half predator? The real femme fatale living inside my eyes?

Men are animals, Stan. But some men are monsters.”