This is the autobiographical story of a doctor, an ophthalmologist who was interrupted in the last semester of medical school in Vienna when the Nazis took over Austria in 1938 — four exams short of his MD — and forced to flee the country. As the title suggests, the beleaguered author’s generally positive attitude towards life, as well as many extraordinary and illuminating incidents, allow him to look back “gratefully” on his life during that extended period of struggle. His key insight is that there are many more kind and helpful people in the world -- Orient as well as Occident -- than you imagine!