Set in 1939, and, despite having no permission to perform surgery, Ravic, a very accomplished German surgeon and a stateless refugee living in Paris, has been ghost-operating on patients for two years on the behalf of two less skillful French physicians. Unwilling to return to Nazi Germany, which has stripped him of his citizenship, and unable to legally exist anywhere else in pre-war western Europe, Ravic manages to hang on. He is one of many displaced persons without passports or any other documents, who live under a constant threat of being captured and deported from one country to the next, and back again. Though Ravic has given up on the possibility of love, life has a curious way of taking a turn for the romantic, even during the worst of times, as he cautiously befriends an actress. © By The Estate of Late Paulette Remarque 1945; ©& IE Vorobev V.A.; ©& Publishing House Soyuz