Arch of Triumph

The author tells of the tragic fate of a talented German surgeon who fled Nazi persecution from fascist Germany. Remarque with great skill analyzes the complex spiritual world of the hero. In this novel, the theme of fighting fascism sounds with enormous force—but it is a struggle of a lone individual, not an organized political movement.

1939. Paris. The novel’s main hero is a refugee from Germany, the talented surgeon Ravik. Like hundreds of other emigrants, he found shelter in a foreign and inhospitable, but still safe France. He has no documents, no permission to work, but after the horrors of a concentration camp and the war, his life now seems tolerable enough. He managed to endure all hardships and humiliations, and now he feels he has enough strength to help restore faith in life and in people to a young actress, Joan—a girl he saved from suicide on one of those rainy, cold Paris nights.