Louis Brodsky, a Jewish seaman from Odessa, came to Australia in 1901. He was a sympathiser for the socialist cause. He lived in Sydney and then in Melbourne, working as a cleaner and dryer. He married and had a family.
Enlisting in the AIF, he reached Egypt, but deserted from his battalion and sailed on the ships as a steward.
Returning to Australia after the war, he was not prosecuted. In the 1920s he tried to develop trade relations with Soviet Russia and made a trip to Russia. During WWII he tried to enlist in the AIF once again, and not long before his death he dreamt to take his new young family to the Soviet Union.
Gustaf Adolf Gustafsson was born in Nyland (Uusimaa) in Finland and came to South Australia in 1912 probably as a seaman. He lived in townships on the Eyre Peninsula, working as a labourer and a packer.
Enlisting in the AIF, he came to Gallipoli with the reinforcements of the 10th Battalion and continued his service on the Western Front in the 4th Pioneer Battalion. In July 1917 he received shrapnel wounds to his back and right leg, but recovered and returned to the trenches.
After the war he left for the US, and had a family there.
John Bartels, a young sailor from Pärnu, Estonia, enlisted in the AIF in Sydney.
With reinforcements to the 3rd Battalion he sailed to Gallipoli, where he was wounded in the neck in December 1915. After recovery he was sent to the Western Front with his unit, where, as a result of conflicts with his NCO, he was court martialled in June 1916 and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment with hard labour, but the sentence was commuted and he was sent back to the trenches. A month later he was killed at Sugarloaf, in the first major battle.
His mother Anna Bartels was found in Pärnu in 1922 and received his medals.
Russian Anzacs