Gershun Harbert

Alias Harbet (naturalisation); Gershen Harbut (Australian Jewry book of honour)

Born 12.02.1888      Place Warsaw, Poland

Ethnic origin Jewish     Religion Jewish

Arrived at Australia

            from London   on 9.07.1910    per Wilcannia

disembarked at Adelaide

Residence before enlistment Adelaide, Sydney

Occupation tailor

Service

service number 2173   enlisted 13.05.1915   POE Liverpool, NSW

unit 4th Battalion, 56th Battalion, 59th Battalion   rank Private

place Gallipoli, 1915; Western Front, 1916

final fate KIA 19.07.1916

cemetery details 7 VC Corner Australian Cemetery, France

Naturalisation 1913

Materials naturalisation (NAA) (Harbet)

digitised service records (NAA)

digitised Roll of Honour card (AWM)

From Russian Anzacs in Australian

 History:

The three killed [at Sugar-loaf salient in July 1916] were Boris Soans from Estonia and Arthur John Savolainen from Finland, both former seamen, and Gershun Harbert, a Polish Jew. Harbert, a former tailor, had fallen sick on Gallipoli; then in Egypt, when his division made its infamous three-day march across the desert in full kit, he suffered heat-stroke. Despite his poor health he went to the Western Front, where he lasted only a few days. During the attack his 15th Brigade was in the worst position and had to cross the widest part of no-man’s-land under the German tempest of fire. Harbert found his end somewhere there among its ditches and furrows. He was reported ‘missing in action’. We shall never know what made him join the AIF, probably devotion to his new homeland. A human grain of sand, doing his bit …

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