In the article “On the history of the nationwide collection of funds for the needs of the armed forces during the Great Patriotic War”, historian Elena Vladimirovna Babaeva notes that with the beginning of the Graet Patriotic War in the USSR, a mass people’s movement began, aimed at mobilizing all forces to repel the enemy. One of the forms of this movement was the collection of funds to provide the Red Army with everything necessary. Almost from the very beginning of the Hitler’s invansion, calls were heard to create a Defense Fund.
The people’s movement to donate funds to the Defense Fund almost immediately became widespread. It was joined by communists and non-party members, teenagers and youth, people of mature age, workers, collective farmers, and employees from all regions of the Soviet Union. Medical workers also participated in rising funds for the needs of the front. Proof of this is a document from the funds of the Museum of the History of Medicine of Belarus of the Republican Scientific Medical Library — a telegram from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, addressed to the head of hospital № 3104, who collected 38,000 rubles for the construction of a tank column- my combat greeting and gratitude to the Red Army.”
Stalin’s telegram to the hospital staff is a unique document showing how medical workers not only fulfilled their professional duties to save the wounded and sick, but also sacrificed personal saving for the needs of the front, in order to bring victory over the enemy closer as quickly as possible.