PHOTO_Genforeningsmindesmærke

In 1920 and the following years, up to 600 reunification stones were erected, which today can be seen throughout the country from Horne in North Jutland to Allinge-Sandvig and from Hjørring to Nykøbing Falster. The occasion was the Danes' joy and gratitude that Southern Jutland had become part of Denmark. Reunification stones are typically untreated fieldstones with inscriptions, but beyond that they vary greatly. The number in different areas of the country, the time of erection and the inscriptions depend on who took the initiative locally and how they went about it. In 1939, Johannes Vejlager wrote the largest work on reunification stones to date, and he writes that the variations provide ‘an interesting psychological picture of the Danish national character, which - thank God - is still far from being unified’. To foreigners, it seems strange that we use such modest stones to commemorate one of the greatest events in the nation's history. But the reunification stones are an expression of a unique folk-based Danish tradition, where many small and humble stones play a major role. According to the late museum curator and PhD Inge Adriansen, they are our most distinctive monument and Denmark's most original contribution to European monument culture.