Hoeryong Revolutionary Site
Kim Jong Suk devoted her life to the liberation of the country and the victory of revolution. She was the most faithful comrade and comrade-in-arms of the great leader President Kim Il Sung. She was also a great revolutionary who had established the sacred tradition of guarding the leader with one’s very life and the mother of revolution who brought up the future of Korea to carry forward the revolutionary cause of Juche for a generation ahead.
In Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, is the revolutionary site where Kim Jong Suk was born and spent her childhood. At the picturesque foot of Osan Hill is her old native home in front of which stands the statue of Kim Jong Suk erected by the people out of respect for her.
Her family lived in the rented straw-thatched house. In a small room of this house Kim Jong Suk was born on December 24, Juche 6 (1917) and spent her childhood till April Juche 11 (1922). Preserved intact in the house are iron pots, tableware, a water jar without ears, faded wardrobes and other household goods and farm implements, which bear traces of poverty. Near the house are a spring, a mill and a washing place where Kim Jong Suk used to help her mother drawing water, pounding rice and doing the wash.
As a child Kim Jong Suk would climb Osan Hill with her friends to pick edible herbs. Seeing displaced emigrants crossing the border line from the height of the hill, she keenly felt the sorrow of a stateless nation and nursed the spirit of love for the motherland.
When she was five, she left the motherland and went with her parents to an alien land across the River Tuman. The Mangyang ferry was where she crossed the river. Leaving the dear native village due to exploitation and oppression by the Japanese imperialist occupiers and landlords, she felt bitter sorrow and anger. At the ferry visitors can see the old ferryboat and a monument telling the story of that day.
The Museum of the Revolutionary Activities of Comrade Kim Jong Suk and a monument to her revolutionary history stand at the foot of Osan Hill. The museum displays materials on the birth and childhood of Kim Jong Suk, materials on her activities in the days when she conducted work of the Young Communist League and led the work of the Children’s Corps under the leadership of President Kim Il Sung, materials on her first meeting with the President at the Sandaowan guerrilla zone, materials on her struggle as a guard after joining the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army and materials on her military and political activities including underground work she carried on crossing and re-crossing the River Amnok. A pistol and a fountain pen the President gave her in commendation, a khaki padded silk overcoat and a pair of gloves Kim Jong Suk made with her utmost care and presented to the President and other relics show impressively her strong spirit of guarding the leader with her very life, boundless loyalty to him and some of the brilliant achievements obtained by her during the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle. The museum also exhibits materials on the revolutionary activities of Kim Jong Suk assisting the President in the days of building a new country after liberation.
The Hoeryong revolutionary site is a historical place showing the noble life and lofty traits of Kim Jong Suk boundlessly loyal to President Kim Il Sung.
Korea Pictorial, Pyongyang, DPRK
Juche 93 (2004)