The Bergman Collection

As a World War rages in Europe, a very different kind of war rages in the Barton household. Given that he comes from a long line of doctors, it is with immense difficulty that Donald Barton finally manages to convince his father to let him study something other than medicine at the University of Michigan. The battle only intensifies when Donald feels compelled to drop out of school to join the American cause against the Germans. After spending several months in training, Donald learns that his outfit will find their orders not in France, as they had expected, but rather in northern Russia and a town called Archangel. There, they will join a battle that the history books have long forgottena brief skirmish between the Americans and Russians following the Bolshevik Revolution and just prior to the end of the conflict with Germany. Though the war is drawing down for the rest of the world, Donald finds himself locked in an intense battle for control of a railroad line and a large cache of military supplies. During the crossfire, he falls captive to a Russian platoon, but makes his escape as they transport him through a thick, snowy forest. The resourceful Donald makes his way through a harsh and unfamiliar land without any sense of where he can go to reunite with his fellow soldiers. After a time, he stumbles across a farming village and, faced with the prospect of freezing to death, decides to take the chance of knocking at the door of one of the simple farmhouses. Inside, he finds a humble and welcoming Russian family who feed him and give him safe shelter. In the morning, they introduce him to their beautiful daughter Sofiya. From the way they communicate with their hands, Donald gets the sense that they want to send Sofiya along with him. Reluctantly he agreesmostly because he feels a strange, unspoken connection to this woman, but also because he gets the sense that she will be in danger should she remain behind. Unaware that the war has already ended, Donald and Sofiya embark upon their remarkable odyssey across frigid and unforgiving Siberia in search of American troops who might help them secure safe passage to America. The journey takes them more than a year. In that time, they teach each other their native tongues, foster their creative interests, find help from many unlikely sources, and fall deeply in love. By the time they reach the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Americans guarding it, they are ready to be married. After a quick wedding ceremony in Harbin, China, they ship home for Philadelphia. Back home, Donald finds an unexpectedly warm welcome from his father. His mother, grandmother, and sister are overjoyed to see him, for his long absence and inability to send letters forced them to assume he was dead. With the help and connections of Donalds family, the two young lovers manage to return to school. The only trouble is that Donald does not yet have any idea what he wants to do for a living. Sofiya is a promising young artist, but Donald cant seem to find a place for himself in life. This restlessness draws the two back to Europe, where they help provide aid to the downtrodden Polish following the war. There, Donald makes a connection with a Jewish tailor named Bergman, a man whose stories send the young wanderer on a path back to his grandmother. From all that he has learned, he discovers that his grandmother is Jewish, a fact that throws his familial identity into question. Intrigued, Donald traces this line of Bergmans to several other previously unknown family members in Philadelphia and Berlin. From Benjamin Bergman in Philadelphia, Donald secures his first real job in a career he never could have envisioned for himself: as a traveling wholesaler of fashionable luggage trunks. Benjamin and his factory construct a high-end, artistic, and well-crafted product that makes Donalds sales job easier than he would have imagined. This fact coupled with Donalds ingenuity leads to exponential growth fo

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