Anecdotes

Rehabilitated and Reopened Sanatoria and Holiday Camps

One February day in 1951 when the Fatherland Liberation War was at its height, a vice-minister of Labour was summoned by the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung.

The official thought that the leader could have called him over the manpower urgently needed at the front.

Seeing him with a tense look, Kim Il Sung told him that the damaged sanatoria and holiday camps should be rehabilitated and reopened. 

Even though this is wartime, the operation of the sanatoria and holiday camps should not be suspended and it is a major people-oriented policy of the government of the Republic to protect and promote the health of the working people, he noted, adding: Now our workers are working overtime with devotion for wartime production. As they know well that wartime production is precisely a struggle for their country and for the victory in the war, they work day and night, not looking after their health. Given this, we should pay closer attention to their health.

That day he took all practical measures to set up night-time sanatoria at the large factories, enterprises and coal and other mines, saying that the holiday camps in safe places in the rear should resume their operation without delay and that those located in the frontline and coastal areas should be left closed and their equipment be evacuated.

Thus the damaged sanatoria and holiday camps of the country were restored and reopened in the trying wartime when the destiny of the country and people was at stake.