Leo Berk

Russian spelling Лео Берк

Born 18.07.1888    Place Belostok, Grodno, Poland    Ethnic origin Russian? Byelorussian?    Religion Roman Catholic

Residence before arrival at Australia served in the Russian army (26 months, artillery) and took part in the Russo-Japanese war (21 months)

Arrived at Australia

Residence before enlistment Brisbane

Occupation 1915 labourer, 1920 traveller for Paproff Co.

Service

service number 8766   enlisted 16.09.1915   POE Brisbane

unit 2nd DAC, 4th FAB   rank Gunner

place Western Front, 1916-1917       casualties WIA 1917

final fate RTA 31.10.1917       discharged 5.02.1918

Naturalisation 1920

Residence after the war Brisbane

Materials naturalisation (NAA)

digitised service records (NAA)

alien registration (NAA)

Berk, L. et al., ‘Protest by Russian Soldiers’, Daily Mail (Brisbane), 5 September 1918, p.8.

Berk, L. et al., ‘Russian Soldiers’ Protest’, Daily Mail (Brisbane), 17 September 1918, p.7.

From Russian Anzacs in Australian History:

Later on, disillusioned by the bloodshed of war, some Russians would bitterly say that this 6 shillings was the price of their betrayal. Walter Kalasnikoff, who came back from the war, half-blinded by an explosion was one who expressed this sentiment. In 1918 at the Russian Association in Brisbane he had the courage to say, pointing to his returned soldiers’ badge: ‘It is my dishonour! I have sold myself for 6s and went to kill my fellow-men!’ The newspaper carried the response of a group of Russian returned soldiers, headed by Leo Berk, who dissociated themselves from Kalasnikoff, by saying, ‘we think that Mr Kalashnikoff [Kalasnikoff] is the only returned Russian soldier who possess the bad instinct of the renegade’. They went on to declare, ‘We went to the front not for 6/- as Mr Kalashnikoff did, but to give our lives in the fight for Russia and her allies in this Great World war for democracy and peace’.

    [...] Kalasnikoff’s opponents were all men from a different social background and with different political sympathies: Leo Berk, Serguey Kalinin, Nicholas Silantiff, Matfeus Oleinikoff, Akim Petroff, Steven Orloff, George Diaconescu, Conrad Shlipnekoff, and Nicholas Fedorovich. They accused Kalasnikoff of having connections with Simonoff, the Soviet-appointed consul, and declared that they ‘will fight the so-called Bolsheviks to the bitter end’. Of these, Serguey Kalinin was considered to be a socialist who opposed bolshevism; but Leo Berk, the instigator of this campaign, was an informant for the security services, according to Raymond Evans. Moreover, in a couple of years’ time two of the others, Nicholas Silantiff and Steven Orloff, will apply for Simonoff’s assistance to return to Russia — to join these very bolsheviks that, here, they claimed to be fighting.

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