August Arthur Huhta, a Finnish seaman from Helsingfors, landed in Australia in April 1916 deserting his ship in Melbourne. Before his enlistment in the AIF he worked as a labourer.
Enlisting in the AIF in Sydney, he left his unit five months later and was discharged as a deserter.
He continued working as a fireman after leaving the AIF.
Zacharias Pieven came from a Cossack family in the township of Saltykova Divitsa in Chernigov Province. He worked as fitter and mechanic in Odessa, Nizhni Novgorod, and Harbin, where he married Klavdia Kroloiski. Pieven sailed to Australia in 1911 and his wife and newborn daughter soon joined him. They settled in Sydney, where their son was born in 1913, but a year later Klavdia tragically lost her life.
Zacharias, working as a fitter at the NSW Government Railway Workshops, enlisted in the AIF in November 1916, but was discharged as medically unfit on the same day. Five months later he died.
An Australian family brought up his children, who preserved the Zacharias family archive.
George Didenko was born in Akkerman (now Belgorod-Dnestrovsky, Ukraine). Working as a ships’ fireman, he came to South Australia in 1911.
Enlisting in the AIF in Adelaide, he sailed to the front with the 5th Pioneer Battalion, but was found medically unfit while in England and returned to Australia.
After the war, George lived in Adelaide up to 1920, but after that he disappears from the Australia records; most likely he had left Australia for good.
Henry Shulgen, a Polish Jew, by 1914 lived in Cairns working as an optician, watchmaker and jeweller. He tried to enlist in the AIF in April 1915 in Cairns, but was not successful.
Moving to Sydney, he married an Australian woman, Rachel Greenfield, and tried to enlist again in November 1916, but his service did not last long. His service records have not been found.
After the war he lived in Sydney, working as a jeweler.
Russian Anzacs