Until the conclusion of Primo Levi’s life, which ended with suicide, he dreamt of his Auschwitz experience. Within the repeating nightmare of the concentration camp (a place without exterior), his previous life, his family, everything that existed outside the camp, seemed only as a short breath, trick of the senses, just a dream from which he was repeatedly awaken – by the order “get up” – into the overwhelming and the only existing reality of the concentration camp. Despite the awful burden of being a victim, which was completely dehumanised in the Nazi extermination camp, Primo Levi opposed the act of suicide, which, for instance, Jean Améry considered as the only dignified solution in such a situation. From being nothing, Levi seized his existence and dignity through lifelong testimony about the institution of extermination camp. He tried to comprehend it and warn us (who were lucky never to know that odious experience) about the extremely thin possibility of retaining individual’s dignity. Nevertheless, as he wrote in The Drowned and the Saved, it were the best ones that drowned in the camp, that is, they did not survive.

After almost a month, the public of Slovenia learned that Aleksandar-Aco Todorović was missing, and immediately afterwards, that he died by his own decision – or as they would say in German – that he chose “Freitod” (free death). Those of us who knew him, hoped he would be found alive, fearing all the while that he made his final decision.

Aco was one of the 25,671 erased permanent residents of Slovenia. To say that he was “one of” is infinitely too little, although it became his primarily denotation during the last 22 years. In the beginning, he really was “only” one among the anonymous erased individuals — those people from whom a group of known perpetrators/rulers took that foundational trait which human beings need in order to live: the status of a person that has a right to have rights. The erased lost the basis for their existence, property, job and income, apartment, health and social insurance, access to schools, while at the same time they were losing family, friends, health, both physical and mental, and what is the worst – their dignity was denied. Those most responsible for the erasure, created bumpers for own responsibility: for everything that happened (or did not), they blamed the erased individuals themselves, framing them as criminals, renegades, sluggards, liars and cheaters…

Notwithstanding the preparation of reparatory measures and indirect acknowledgement of the erasure through issuing of retroactive decisions, and in spite of the decisions of the Constitutional Court and the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights, the cruel facts about the crime of erasure, dug out by the researchers and activists, continued to be swamped by the systematic lies promoted by those responsible for the erasure. The responsible ones have not apologised to the erased, nobody admitted the crime, while the overall denial of the event and shifting of the responsibility continues.

Aco was one of the brave ones, one of the best. By this, I do not mean only one of the bravest among the erased people, but in whole Slovenia. He stopped being anonymous and though he had no identification document, he stood up in the public, started talking about the erasure, organising other erased people – he started fighting. For the first time I talked to him on the phone upon the foundation of the Association of the Erased, at the time when the majority did not want to believe nor hear that the erasure did happen. At first he was unsure, but headstrong, decisive and unyielding. He gathered a handful of those who were ready to speak up in public and in this way he brought the seemingly nonexistent people directly into the existence. The man, who dug out himself out of the hole of nonexistence with his own hands, reclaimed dignity for himself and the others, thus becoming an individual and a responsible political being.

We met twice during the last two months. At a theatre performance about the erasure in Kranj, which I attended together with my neighbour, also one of the erased. He seemed to me stable and somehow at peace: some people understand what had happened, the debate about the reparations is ongoing, things happened that would remain unimaginable without his activism. I saw him for the last time when he and Mirjana Učakar attended the film and debate about Hannah Arendt in Ptuj, where we spoke about Eichmann mentality and Slovene bureaucrats that executed the erasure. Aco was knowledgeable in humanities. He understood well the wider relation between the erasure and crimes against humanity. He was also well aware of the importance of public testifying about the erasure, the necessity to acknowledge it as a crime, and the fact that the denial of the erasure and impunity given to the perpetrators opened the door to the impunity regarding other transitional offenses and crimes.

I will not speculate about immediate reasons for his death, since it is impossible to look into human’s soul. Still, I cannot ignore the fact that the erasure, testifying about it, the fight for the acknowledgement of the erasure and the reparation of the injustices, brought tremendous consequences to him personally. We will never know what dreams of injustice reparation and nightmares of the erasure Aco Todorović dreamt. Nevertheless, we could be sure that we have here yet another death casualty of the erasure. This, however, is not an anonymous death. It is a screaming statement to the public in Slovenia, which speaks that putting head in the sand while crimes and violations of human rights of a minority take place, or even giving support to it, opens the door not only to suffering of that minority group, but also to the human rights violations of the majority. Unfortunately this is not a matter of general insight. At the notice of Todorović went missing, some anonymous commentators could not withhold racist and chauvinist remarks. They should be ashamed!

I pay tribute to the courage displayed by Aleksandar-Aco Todorović. May he rest in peace.

Vlasta Jalušič, Peace Institute

The Peace Institute wishes to pay tribute to Aleksandar Todorović, tireless fighter for the rights of the erased, with the book of condolence published on the website “The Erased: Information and documents”.

You can send us your thoughts through the online form, email info@mirovni-institut.si, or Facebook profile of the Peace Institute and pay tribute to the man that has left an indelible mark in all of us.

The Peace Institute

When writing a biography, you usually include both good and bad stories, true or a little less true. I will try to tell my story in this few pages.
I was born in 1961 in a small town in Macedonia. Destiny wanted my parents to divorce and to put me for adoption. With less than two years I got a new family, the only one I know, but at this point I will not write much about it.

I grew up in the country and finished primary school. My parents opposed me going to high school, because they believed that as a girl I do not need education, but I have to work and help on the farm. I was an excellent student, so in the end they gave up and enrolled me in high school. The happiness did not last long. My parents tried in every way for me to drop out of school. I finished education just before the end of the second year and I did not have enough money for food, let alone for anything else.

I was working at the fields all days and was trying to decide what to do with myself. I could not accept the fact that I am staying in the village and working in the fields from dawn to dusk. During that time I met a guy whose sister lived and worked in Slovenia, and he was preparing to move in with her and work there. He asked me to leave with him, it was in 1979. Since I was a minor, I could not leave immediately. I waited until my 18th birthday. On 5th of August we celebrated it, and then young, crazy and in love made a plan to move to Slovenia. We packed few things into a suitcase and full of hopes and dreams left to pursue a better life.

When we arrived in Črnomelj it became clear to me why the guy talked about Slovenia so much and wanted to come here. I felt like I had been here since always. We found the accommodation and work, and I was really happy. But this happiness did not last long. My boyfriend was too jealous and did not let me work. I worked in the former IMV in Novo Mesto for a month, and then I started working in the textile industry Novoteks. My boyfriend did not let me work there as well. He was earning enough for both of us to live on his salary. For some time it remained like that, but I quickly realized that my life had not changed much.

One day in 1981 I packed my suitcases and left for Kranj. That is where our story together ends. I quickly found a job and arrange my life in a short time, just like I had always wanted. I was overjoyed, because my dreams finally started coming true. I worked in Tekstilindus, I had an apartment in the working – class home and was quickly making friends. In one word – I was happy. I also met my husband and we got married in 1984. In 1986 we got a daughter and we were happy and satisfied family. My husband was working in the barracks in Kranj. At that time you could only have permanent residence in one country of SFRY, so I registered in Kranj on 11/08/1984, shortly after the wedding. We had lived in Kranj until November 1988, when my husband got transferred and we moved to Maribor. I gave birth to my younger daughter in Maribor on 06/14/1990. We were happy. My husband was working and I was taking care of the children. Then things began to change in our country. The disintegration of Yugoslavia began.

I remember the plebiscite and with how much hope for a better life we voted for the independence of Slovenia, with how much confidence I went to vote for President Milan Kučan, and even in the wildest dreams had not thought those things would happen. We all know how it turned out and how the collapse of SFRJ happened. At this point I want to tell you how much pain and suffering this caused to me and my family. In May 1991 I went to Macedonia. Since I was not working at that time, I wanted my parents to spend some time with their granddaughters. I wanted to stay for one month, during which my brother and his wife had a baby and I wanted to be present at this festive event. As the old and wise say: evil never comes just once, it is always accompanied by another. My sister in law gave birth to a baby with a heart defect, who died after one month. I was with them so I could help. My husband was working in a meantime and called us to come back because he missed us. We wanted to go back on 1st of July, as soon as he got paid. But that was only a wish, on 25.6. 1991 there were news on television saying “In Slovenia, the war began”.

At that moment it was not clear who is in war with whom, I could not believe what I saw and heard. I went into town to call my husband, because we did not have the phone at home. I could not reach him because all the connections were dead and for few days I was not able to talk to anyone in Slovenia. After about 7 or 8 days, I do not know exactly, I managed to speak to my husband. When I asked him what was going on, and how much is true of what they were broadcasting on television, he said only that he knows nothing, that he fears for his job and does not know what to do. I was shocked and lost.

I did not know what was going on in Slovenia, I did not know how to get back home and how to explain to my daughter why we cannot go back and why she cannot see her father, she had only five years. At that time I did not even imagine that we will never go back to my home again, and that I will have to wait for 21 years to come back to Slovenia – the country that I love, and that I will have to wait for 21 years to see my friends again.

When I was recently in Kranj and Ljubljana and saw my friends, apartment where I used to live and all the places dear to me, I thought my heart will break, both of happiness and sadness. All these 20 years I was suffering and hoping that one day I will come back to where I belong. Whenever I asked my friends how my family can come back, I always got the same answer – we cannot because we were erased. Nevertheless, I never stopped loving Slovenia, a country where I was happiest.

Sometime in September 2004 I asked our friends to send me a letter of guarantee so I could visit them and at the same find out how we can return. I got a letter of guarantee and went to Podgorica in October to obtain the visa. I will not even write what I heard from a representative in Slovenian embassy there, but I did not get a visa. Only hope that one day everything will change remained, and it did. Now I hope that at least my daughters will be able to live in a country where they were born.

I hope that they will say that we can go back home because we never left, we just went to visit the grandparents. At the beginning, we were unable to return because of the war, and when the war ended, we were not allowed to return because we were erased, and nobody asked us anything. I will not write about the ugly things, I will not write how much my daughters suffered over the last twenty years, it is enough to write that we changed three countries, two languages and were everywhere treated as refugees from Slovenia. My kids often asked me: “Mom, why are we refugees?” I did not know how to answer them, because basically we never escaped from there. They are wonderful now, and they were always good students despite the fact that we were constantly moving. Unfortunately, Eva was unable to complete the faculty, but I hope she will succeed. Ema is studying, she has a little girl with a Slovene and she is living with him. This is another reason why I want to return to Slovenia.

On behalf of my children and me I ask you to allow us to return and live in Slovenia. You will return my kids hope in a better tomorrow and make up for what they have suffered, and that was a lot – from the fact that they were sometimes hungry (you know what was the situation in Serbia), to the fact that they started a school year in one country, but ended it in another, the fact that since we were not able to return to Maribor, they did not have a permanent residence anywhere, and no place they can call home. They grew up moving from one place to another. Let us continue where we left 20 years ago.

I was born in 1962 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Soon after my birth we moved to Slavonia (Croatia), where I grew up. I did military service in Serbia, and after that – in 1983 – I came to Maribor, Slovenia. I unregistered in Croatia, I got a certificate of no criminal record and registered permanent residence in Maribor. I went to the plebiscite, first parliamentary and presidential elections. At that time I still had the old Yugoslav passport issued in Croatia, which was valid until 1990, and in Maribor I got an ID card.

In 1983, when I came to Slovenia, I got a job in one company in Maribor and worked there until 1986. Then I got a job in another company and lost it in July 1993 as redundant. Up to then I was working normally, the company never mentioned that I had to arrange a work permit and never warned me that it was important to submit an application for citizenship. I signed up at the unemployment office and was for some time (for about a year) receiving compensation. Then I occasionally worked for a wine cellar (picking apples) and they told me that I need a working visa and that I should go to the municipality to arrange it. I did not understand why.

When Slovenia became independent I did not submit an application for Slovenian citizenship because I did not know what it means, why it was necessary and what would the consequences be. In 1994 I should had extended the application to continue receiving financial aid at the unemployment office. When I got there to arrange it, they told me to go to the municipality to ask for a certificate of permanent residence. When I got to municipality, they destroyed my ID card (issued in Maribor) and tossed it in the trash! When I asked why they did that, they told me that I should be happy they did not call the police and that I was even lucky to be in this state. They did not tell me that I have to arrange my status of a foreigner, and that I need a working permit in order to work. Because they were so unfriendly, I left and did not ask them any questions.

In 1988 I was enrolled in secondary school for metalworking in Maribor (while still working), and I could not finish it because I did not have documents required for the final exams (this was probably in 1994). I still have my high school transcripts and certificates.

From 1983 to 1997 I lived in the house of one older lady that I was taking care of and helping her financially while I was still employed. In return this lady gave me a room and let me live with her. The lady died in 1993, and I continued to live in her house until 1997, when her heirs kicked me out of the house. Since then I am homeless. Bills on my name were coming to the address where I lived until 1997. I received a reminder that I did not pay income tax (cannot remember until which year), and at the end the court settlement, the threat of seizure etc. I have everything saved. My friends and acquaintances are helping me all the time, letting me sleep in their houses. Sometimes I sleep in some work shop, and during summer in the garden, where I have a hut. Occasionally I work on black market.

I did not have any problems with police. It was about two years ago that the police stopped me on the street and asked me for documents. I said that I do not have any identity documents. At first they were threatening me and said there is a big penalty if I do not have the documents. Then I said I was erased and that I really do not have any documents. The police said that I should have said so at the beginning – and that I am free to go. This was the only case of legitimation in the last twenty years.

I learned from friends that I am eligible for identity card for foreigners. I tried to get it and I still have confirmation of that. I did not get it because they told me I need to bring a birth certificate and proof of no criminal record from Bosnia and Herzegovina. That was in the late 90′s, but because of the war I did not go anywhere. Even if I did, I would not be able to return to Slovenia because I did not have any documents. Moreover, I was just born in Bosnia, but never lived there. In the municipality where I was born, they probably would not even give me documents, also because of tensions between Muslims and Serbs in that area. Later, around 2002 or 2003, I submitted an application for Slovenian citizenship and got it denied. Then I went to Ljubljana to one lawyer who wrote me a complaint – but got it denied again. In the local community, where I went to vote in the early 90′s, I asked for confirmation that I came there to vote. I took this to the municipality of Maribor, in order to prove that I was actually living in Maribor. The employees at municipality yelled at me and said how I could obtain such a certificate, since this is a state’s confidential information. Then they even called the secretary of the local community, who gave me this certificate, and yelled at him as well how could he had written such a confirmation.

Due to the erasure, I had lost the house in which I lived, I could not obtain a driver’s license, I could not finish high school and I could not get another job. I know that today I would have a job if I had legal status. Since I did not have health insurance and money to pay the dentist, I have lost quite few teeth. Apart from these problems with teeth, I did not have health problems. If I ever needed any medication, my friends gave it to me. After the erasure, my mother and father died (in Croatia), and I could not go to the funeral because I was not able to cross the border. I have a brother and two sisters in Serbia, but I have not seen them since I was there in the army.

I did not know that there were so many erased people. I also did not know what, how and why the erasure occurred. I knew a few people who had problems, but I did not know exactly why. I also knew a family, which was hiding in their house for half of a year. Only later I realized that today everything would be all right, if I had applied for citizenship when Slovenia became independent. I am most hurt by the fact that no one has been held accountable for the erasure yet, that no one has admitted the mistake yet. Slovenia does not respect people – even honest people – and it is no wonder that more and more people are moving abroad.

My husband and I were both born in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He first came to Slovenia for seasonal work of highway construction in 1972. In 1974, he got called in for military service. He was in the army for 15 months and he returned to Slovenia in 1976, where he got the job again. A year later he got married to his first wife. In 1978 they both unregistered in Bosnia and register their permanent residence in Slovenia. A few years later he got divorced and married me in 1984. I moved to Slovenia and registered here. For a while we both worked at the hotel in Gorenjska. In 1985 I gave birth to our first son and in 1990 to the second.

In 1991 we did not submit the applications for Slovenian citizenship. I had health problems. I was in the hospital and I was not aware that there is a deadline for applications and did not even know what it means. When I returned from the hospital and I learned that we should had submitted an application for citizenship, it was already too late. We were not aware of the consequences, especially not for the two children, since they were both born in Slovenia. My husband and I had the ID cards issued in the administration office in Jesenice. When they expired, we were without any documents for a long time.

In 1991 or 1992 both my husband and I had to take forced leave of absence, and then we both lost our jobs. Because I was working there for only about a year, I was not entitled to compensation. My husband worked there for about seven years, so he was receiving the compensation for two years. In 1992, when I was told that I am not entitled to social benefit and child allowances, we finally realized we were erased. That is when we also remained without any documents.

After these two years (probably in 1994), my husband got the job at one private practice. He says, he did not have any work permit and that he did not know he needed it. He was working for them for almost nine years. He did not know that they never registered him, and that in fact he was working for them illegally. On the payroll it was written that he had paid all contributions, and we thought we all have insurance through him. But in fact all those nine years we did not have health insurance. I found out this when I took my younger son to the doctor, and they told me he has no health insurance. Fortunately, the rest us never had any health problems and we did not need medical assistance.

My husband’s employer soon went out of business. Then (probably around 2001), he got another job, where he was regularly employed for a year and a half and he had arranged work permit and was paid all the contributions. In 2002, he arranged himself a Bosnian passport at the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Ljubljana. That is when he also received a working permit, which was extended after one year. He was travelling every day to Nova Gorica, so he wanted to find a job closer to home. And he got a job at some private practice in Jesenice. He still had his working permit valid when he started working there. Unfortunately, after about three years, the employer went out of business, and he failed to pay my husband more than 3000 euros.

The older son finished primary and high school without any problems. Nobody ever asked anything about the fact that he did not have citizenship. The younger son had health problems since being born and he was in the hospital very often. He finished kinder garden normally, but then we needed to enroll him in primary school with special needs. He finished it and got enrolled in high school with a special program (two and a half years). After few months he dropped out of school, because his schoolmates teased and insulted him and he did not feel good at school.

Both sons normally went to primary school and got enrolled in high school, even though they had no citizenship and no documents. But they were not eligible for subvention for meals and transport, like other children who had Slovenian citizenship were. They could not go on school trips, if they went abroad. The older son wanted to play football, but he could not enter the football club because he had no documents and could not play in Austria and Italy, where they had a lot of matches. So my sons never went anywhere, the older one up until he was 18 years old and got citizenship, and the younger until the age of 19, when he got a passport for foreigners (he received it in 2009, and it was valid for 2 years) and an ID card for foreigners. After that he went for the first time to Bosnia and Herzegovina to visit his grandmother.

I also (as my husband) tried to obtain a Bosnian passport at the Embassy of Bosnia and Hercegovina in Ljubljana, but I was unsuccessful. I called my consultant at the municipality of Jesenice and then received an appeal to come there. They told me that I did not get the Bosnian passport because my son and I were citizens of Montenegro. I was very upset, since I had never lived in Montenegro, my son was born in Slovenia and he never even went out of the state. The officer in the municipality wrote me some certificate, with which I could go to Bosnia and get their passport. He told me that I could normally cross the border with this certificate. That was in 2001 or 2002. Both my husband and I went to Bosnia and Herzegovina and on the Slovenian border we were stopped and told that without documents we cannot cross the border. When I told them that I have this certificate to go across the border, they told me that I must first pay 20,000 SIT of penalty and then they will take me away. My husband paid 10,000 SIT because he did not have more, and then they did not take me anywhere, but I was unable to return to Slovenia for six months. My two sons remained in Slovenia and were taken care by the neighbors. My husband was able to cross the border normally, because he had a Bosnian passport, a temporary residence permit and a working permit. So he went back home, and I returned to Bosnia with the aim to obtain a Bosnian passport. For half of a year I could not get a visa for Slovenia, because the Slovenian Embassy in Sarajevo required a letter of guarantee from a Slovenian citizen who is employed. Later I got it from a friend from Slovenia. I had to be in Bosnia for 6 months, separated from my children.

I received my first passport (Bosnian) in 2001 and the first temporary permit in 2005. Then I was renewing permit for temporary residence until 2007, when I received a permanent residence permit. My husband had a temporary residence permit until 2007 and received a permanent residence permit at the same time as me. I tried to apply for citizenship for both my sons, but I failed. The municipality officers always said that I need to bring papers from Bosnia and Herzegovina (proof of no criminal record, a confirmation from the register…). When I told them again and again that the two of them have nothing to do with Bosnia and Herzegovina, because they never lived there, they asked me if they were in a war, if they were in the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina! My sons did not have written anything about citizenship in their birth certificates.

When the older son was 18 years old, he was eligible to apply for a citizenship on his own. I guess it made a difference that he was arranging everything with another officer in the municipality. I was arranging all my matters with the same officer, all this years. My son had to bring a certificate from kinder garden, certificates from primary school, certificates from secondary school, proof of no criminal record and birth certificate. He was waiting for citizenship for about a year and a half, he got it in 2006. Before he obtained it, he had to sign a statement that he will not seek for any compensation from the state! He just signed and did not ask about anything. Before that he had no status – he never had a permit for temporary or permanent residence.

I have repeatedly tried to obtain a citizenship for the younger son, but they tell me every time he has to be employed, he has to bring a certificate of no criminal record from Bosnia and Herzegovina and that he has to have first permanent residence permit and a Bosnian passport before he can submit an application for Slovenian citizenship. They gave me a confirmation from the register of birth, where the section of citizenship is not filled in, and told me to go with this to Bosnia and Herzegovina and register him. I did not do that. I already have had problems with arranging a permanent residence permit, because they did not want to register him on the address where we actually live, because the building is not written down in the land register, therefor for them it does not exist. When the younger son got the card – permanent residence permit, it was written on it that he is a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We did not have any serious problems with police, but it happened twice that we were stopped and asked for documents. We told them we were erased and have no documents. They let us go, but we were teased and bullied that they are going to take us with them. In the municipality office they have always been very rude and they were insulting us and telling us to go back to Bosnia.

A few years ago I got the job in a private cleaning service, where I worked only three days. Working conditions were intolerable, we were working from morning until late evening and the boss was behaving very rude towards us. Most women stopped working there after three days. After that I worked for two years in a laundry room. When I received my first salary they told me I do not have a working permit. They told me to arrange that. I paid for this permit around 150 euros. Then they told me they cannot employ me permanently, because I do not have a citizenship. Now I should get work in a nursing home, but they have not called me yet. In believe it is because I do not have a citizenship. My husband is registered at the unemployment office and occasionally they find him some work, but they do not employ him permanently because he is almost 60 years old. We receive 400 euros of social support and recently the younger son got it as well. The older son had a job, but he recently lost it. I went to the Red Cross to ask for help several times (for a package of basic food), and they told me that I am not entitled for it. For years I had been helping elderly neighbors and they had given food and helped me. Now they are all dead and therefor I do not get this help anymore.

We live in a municipal apartment, which is maintained by a private firm. When we moved in, my husband paid a deposit for an apartment and signed a lease agreement for indefinite period. Since we did not have money to regularly pay the bills, we now own this firm around 3000 euros. We received an eviction order. Then we filed in a complaint and got a new date for the eviction. We asked for an extension again, because we thought that the older son will get a job for an indefinite period and will be able to take a loan to repay this debt, but we just received another order to evict. Since the older son has lost his job, we do not know how we will repay this debt and what will happen after the eviction, because we have nowhere to go. Even in Bosnia we do not have any house or assets. All three of us would like to obtain Slovenian citizenship in order to get a job, take a loan and pay off this debt for the flat and not get evicted.

We are hurt the most about the fact that we did not have a right to work and documents. If we had this documents arranged, we would not have fallen into debt and could have lived normally now.

I knew the day would come when I could tell someone the truth of what happened to me in my life – and I know it was not my fault. I was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1970. I came to Slovenia in 1986, when I was barely 16 years old, with the aim of searching for a better life. I lived in Ljubljana with my uncle, who helped me to find a job. I was also temporarily registered at his place. Very quickly I started working at the Medical Centre in Ljubljana (in the laundry room), and received a single room in the workers’ house soon after. I was working in the Medical Centre for about seven years. I felt good and satisfied at work. In 1991 I got married and gave birth to a son a year after that.

When it was time to submit an application for the citizenship, my husband and I did it at the same time. He got the Slovenian citizenship, but my application was rejected because I did not have a registered permanent residence before the Slovenian plebiscite. I was not able to register for permanent residence before, because I lived in a workers’ home and was told that I cannot register at this address. Immediately after the plebiscite I applied for permanent residence. I was told that I can reapply for Slovenian citizenship later and request it on the basis of my husband and son, who were Slovenian citizens. And so I did.

At that time they told us at work that anyone without Slovenian citizenship will be fired and in 1992 I remained without a job. I believed that they will take into account the fact that I am a wife and mother of a Slovenian citizen, but I was wrong. The other co-workers who did not have Slovenian citizenship also got fired. It was hard to deal with being thrown somewhere in the fog where you have neither a job nor citizenship. I was waiting for Slovenian citizenship for eight years. In a meantime, my ID card expired and I went to administrative office to have it extended. I experienced a shock there. The responsible person destroyed (punctured) my still valid ID in front of my husband’s eyes. The same person also told me that foreigners in Slovenia cannot have a permanent residence. I cannot have Slovenian documents if I do not have a citizenship. I asked – how can I live without a document, how can I prove to anyone my identity, if I do not have any personal document? At that time I did not realize that I had been erased. I did not know. The official told me that I have to go to the Bosnian embassy to get my passport, and then I can apply for a residential visa.

I submitted a request for a Bosnian passport and after that I asked for a residential visa. I got it, but for a very short time. It had to be constantly extended. In administration office there were always long rows. Since I had a small child at home, I could not always wait in a line all day long. And during winter time we were always freezing standing in there! I was sending my father in law to wait in a line, and when it was my turn, he called me to get there. And once I got there, it was already end of office hours. That happened three days in a row and my visa expired, which complicated things even more. When I finally came to the window (with an invalid visa), and explained them what happened, they told me that they cannot help me with anything. The next day I went back and again asked them to help me. They insulted me and told me that I am not in the right department, and that if the police catch me with an invalid document, they will send me back to Bosnia. I had a husband and a child here and I was never depending on a state, I was able to take care of myself, I had a job and a normal life. That was when it finally crushed me. Not so much because I was out of work, although I cared since it was my first job, but because I was in a situation in which no one treated me as a human being. I was really hurt.

When I first applied for a residence visa, they told me that I have to unregister first (because I had permanent residence registered at the address where we lived), and then register again on another department for temporary permit. I never understood why. Were they playing with my fate? I ended up without everything. I had no identity document, no health insurance. The officer told me that I have an invalid document (Bosnian passport and invalid residential visa) and that I have to go out of Slovenia and then come back and claim for the residential visa again. I asked them how can they advise me this and who guarantees me that I can come back with an invalid document. The officer did not want to tell me her name, she was quiet, and after she said she cannot help me anymore. How could I go across the border with an invalid document? I had a family here! And I was afraid to walk down the streets! I think even these officials did not know what is right and what is not. It was all so confusing. If somebody had told me clearly what to do and what are the consequences, it would have been much different.

For about three years I was without any document. I had only confirmation that I applied for Slovenian citizenship. I found job somehow (on black market through someone else’s student referral) so that I had some income, and I was also used and willing to work. My husband lost his job at that time. I did not have health insurance and could not see a doctor so if I felt any pain, I had to put up with it and suffer. I have lost a lot of my teeth and they ached! I was only able to help myself. Out of despair I asked my relative for her health card once, but she did not give it to me. She was afraid she would have troubles because of that. I understood, but I was still hurt. Luckily, I did not have any serious health problems. I was young and healthy.

In 1996 I got pregnant and had to see a doctor. But how? I believed that there are still few good people in this world and did not give up. I told myself that I will give birth, even if the world collapses. I told people around me about my distress, because I hoped somebody will be able to help. And one girl really did – she took me to her friend who registered me as a refugee from Bosnia and Herzegovina. I was first afraid to register as a refugee, because I had already applied for citizenship. After all these years of living in Slovenia, I had to become a “refugee” because I did not have health insurance. I came here as a sixteen year old child because I wanted my own money and a normal life. However, I was grateful for that refugee status so I could go and give birth normally – I got a daughter. I was still wondering why I cannot get a Slovenian citizenship. I had refugee status by the time I finally got the citizenship in 1999.
After I had applied for citizenship, I had to go every three months to renew the expired documents (e.g. certificate of good conduct) to the application for citizenship. Each certificate was valid only for three months, and every time I had to go to the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where I paid 40 marks for each certificate. It was like this for eight years. After eight years they rejected my request for citizenship, because I did not (so they claimed) bring the certificate of my husband’s personal income in deadline. I said that I submitted it on time, but I had no proof, because the keeper who accepted it from me never gave me any confirmation. When I got the invitation to come to administration office, I was convinced that I finally got the citizenship. When I came there, I happily asked the employee (I very well remember him as he was without one arm), if I really got citizenship. This gentleman laughed in my face and said, “Yes, yes, ma’am, you got it!” Without any explanation, he gave me some papers to sign. I was led to believe it is an invitation to come to be served, and he even said that I got it. When I signed it, he said, “No, ma’am, you are not getting citizenship”. The application was rejected because it did not contain the certificate on personal income of your husband. I will never forget this day! I went home crying to my family. Once again I was humiliated in the “nice” way. I believe I should get the Slovenian citizenship in 1992 when I met all the conditions, and my husband and child were also Slovenian citizens.

During these eight years I was also hurt about what I heard from the neighbours. They said police was coming every three months into our village to ask if I really live on this address. When the neighbours asked them why they are asking this, they said it is because of the citizenship. I felt like the worst criminal, like I did something really wrong. But I did not. I was living a fair life, taking care of two children and had never lived on a state support. Even now, after 20 years, it breaks my heart when I remember all this. Maybe someone who is reading this will say it is not true. But it is the cruel truth. I could have written much more, but I am ashamed to tell all what I had experienced because I did not obtain the Slovenian citizenship.

When I got the request denied, I was told to apply again. It needed to be accompanied by the same documents, and I had to pay for all of this again. I had learned you should never give up. I heard about one lady who was offering free legal assistance and the day after I got my application denied, I went over to her, told her my story and gave her all the documents. Even today I am grateful to her because she saved me. She even paid for my fee, for which I did not have the money because me and my husband were both out of a job. I am still so grateful to her! Within two weeks I received the Slovenian citizenship! Then I immediately found a job and started working again.

It is sad how someone can play with people’s lives like that. Many are probably still wondering – what do these erased want? We want an apology for what they did to us. I can still very well remember gentleman without one arm, who was working in that office. And one of the ladies who worked there at that time and now works in the office in Moste. When I have something to be arranged in the office, I feel bad when I remember about these people. There is still fear present that something will go wrong again.

Only the erased and our families really know what we have been through. I know they are cases much worse than mine, some families broke up because of this. Some of them had not seen each other for years. Did anybody ask themselves how did these people feel? Until I got the citizenship, I had not been anywhere out of Slovenia. I had not seen my parents, brothers and sisters for four and a half years. My child met them when he was five years old. Is this humane? Because I did not have my papers, I could not cross the border. How do you explain to a child why the others can go to Bosnia and we cannot? What do you say to them when they are asking, why others have two other grandmothers instead of one? You cannot explain all that to a child. Later we went to talk on Gorjanci because I could not cross the border. They were able to, but I was not. And then the war began in Bosnia, and for some time I did not even know whether my relatives are alive. Why me? I remember people who did not have a job or housing and got citizenship immediately. I did not. When I got my citizenship and went to Bosnia to visit relatives, I did not even remember them properly anymore. They asked what happened to me, why am I completely different. I was not able to laugh anymore. I first met my grandmother on the street when I arrived. I could not speak. I cried. I could not get myself together for two days. I was so happy that after so many years I could go there again.

I feel bad when people say that the erased did not want the Slovenian citizenship. That is not true. I wanted it! People did not know. When I first came to Slovenia, I also did not know that I have to apply for permanent residency, if I do not want to have any problems later. If someone had told me that, I would have done it immediately. At that time there was no talk about this in public, in media. People did not have all the information. I found out about the erasure very late. Only after I got the citizenship and went back to work in the laundry room, my colleagues and I discussed what happened to us. I did not hear anything in media about it. One of my colleagues told me about the erasure, and that there is an association dealing with it. I once went with her to the general meeting, and got enrolled in the association. If I had not been talking to this people, I would not have any information.

It was bad. It was really bad. What happened to me was injustice. I do not like to speak about these years. My family has a normal life now, luckily. I wrote down all this long ago because I knew that once the time will come when I can tell someone. I had such a feeling, and now this day has come. I will conclude here and say that I never want anyone to experience what I have experienced in Slovenia. Of course, I also have a lot of nice memories, but because of everything else what happened, it all has a bitter aftertaste.

I was born in Banja Luka, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in 1956. In 1973, I moved to Slovenia to find a job. I got employed in Kranj. At that time I didn’t deregister in Banja Luka and didn’t register a residence address in Kranj since I didn’t know if I would stay in Slovenia or not. In 1975, I was called up to the army from Banja Luka. I spent 15 months in the army, after that I got married in 1977 and moved permanently to Kranj with my wife. We de-registered in Banja Luka and registered a permanent residence in Kranj. I returned to my former workplace. My wife soon found a job in Kranj, where she is still employed today. In 1979, we had a daughter and in 1983, a son.

In the beginning of the Nineties, a rumor about the independence of Slovenia was going around, as well as a rumor that we will have to apply for citizenship. We heard people saying that everybody who was going to apply for Slovene citizenship was going to lose their private property and other possessions in other republics of former Yugoslavia. We were building a house in Banja Luka and I had inherited my parents’ house. Because we were afraid that this would really happen, we didn’t know what to do. In the end we decided that my wife and the children were going to apply for citizenship. Our children were going to school in Kranj and we feared that we would have problems if they didn’t have a Slovene citizenship. All three of them received citizenship. In 1991, I decided to ask at the municipality what other options were.

While others applied for citizenship, I stated at the municipality that I didn’t want Slovene citizenship (because of the reasons stated above) and that I wanted to know what I should do. A town clerk told me that I could apply for a permit for permanent residence and that I didn’t have to apply for citizenship. He told me that in order to obtain a permit for permanent residence I would have to de-register first and that he would register me again after that. This town clerk gave me a de-registration form. I didn’t understand why I had to de-register in order to be registered again but I didn’t ask questions. I did what I was required to do and it didn’t even occur to me that something could go wrong since the town clerk immediately handed me a permit for renewed permanent residence (which I still have) and in the near future I received an identity card for foreigners.

To receive a passport (Yugoslavian) I had to ask again and again at embassies (in Trieste, Vienna and Budapest) every time. For these passports I applied almost every year since passports of former Yugoslavia were changing that often at that time. Let me add that although I had a certificate of permanent residence and a permanent work permit I had to renew and pay a work visa in my passport every year.

In 1991, my identity card and passport (both issued in Kranj) expired and I wanted to get new documents. At the municipality, I was told to go to the next room where I would receive an identity card for foreigners. I really received an identity card for foreigners and at that time I believed that that town clerk regulated my permit for permanent residence too – that he registered me anew. But he didn’t. Since 28 June 1984 I had been registered at the army in Kranj too until I received a call from the municipality on 10 December 1992 and they de-registered me.

I don’t remember when exactly – I think it was in 1994 – we bought a car. I went to the municipality to transfer ownership. I had my identity card for foreigners with me and as we wanted to transfer ownership the town clerk told me that she couldn’t find my name in the computer. That I didn’t exist. I didn’t understand what she was saying since I had been living in Slovenia all the time and hadn’t crossed the border in the last year or two. Besides, I had my identity card for foreigners issued in Kranj. The town clerk told me: “You’re not here.”

This town clerk called another one who immediately knew that something was wrong. She had a look at my identity card and went to check something. She told me to come back in a day or two and that is when I received a permit for permanent residence.

Apparently, I had been erased on 26 February 1992 and didn’t know it until 1994 when I wanted to transfer ownership of a car. Luckily, I hadn’t crossedthe border during this time since in this case I wouldn’t have been able to come back. I still had the old Yugoslavian passport. Since 1994 we have traveled to Banja Luka twice over Hungary. My wife and children had Slovene passports and I still had my old Yugoslavian. Luckily, they didn’t control our passports and we didn’t get into trouble.

We’re a family of five. My husband and I were born in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We got married in 1979 in Bosanska Krupa, where we also lived for some time. Our first daughter was born in 1980, and our second in 1982. We moved to Slovenia in 1983, as my husband found employment for an indeterminate period in Gorenjska region. We’ve stayed in Slovenia ever since. In Gorenjska, we lived in a flat owned by a funeral home. In 1986, I became permanently employed in a hospital in Gorenjska. In 1990, our third daughter was born in Slovenia. After living in a smaller town for 18 years, we moved to Jesenice in 2001, and we got a flat that belonged to my husband’s employer. At the time we were moving from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Slovenia, we reported the changes in primary residence in Bosanska Krupa (my husband also withdrew from the military) and in Slovenia right after we arrived. Our health insurance has always been taken care of.

We didn’t apply for citizenship in 1991. My husband was working all the time, I had a job and three daughters to take care of, and because we both knew we had permanent residence and employment with unlimited contracts, we thought acquiring Slovenian citizenship wasn’t necessary. We weren’t aware of possible consequences. We never talked to anyone about citizenship and why we should apply for it. The town we lived in was mostly inhabited by the Slovenes, there were practically no immigrants. We didn’t have any troubles up until 1993.

In 1993, the police came into our apartment and told us to hand them all documents. We gave them our five Yugoslavian passports, but were allowed to keep our border passes. My husband was taken to a police station and given a notice stating our passports had been seized. He was told that we needed the notice to arrange Bosnian passports at the Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Ljubljana. We didn’t know we have been erased up until the day the police appeared.

The fact that we had been erased was a big shock for all of us. Even the youngest daughter, who was born in Slovenia and has never lived elsewhere, was erased. All of us, including her, were given Bosnian passports at the Embassy. We couldn’t return to Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time, as it was during a time of warfare. From 1993, we all had Bosnian passports and temporary residence permits for Slovenia. We were being given visas that were valid for a month or two, sometimes longer, but never for a whole year or more. This represented a great expense, up until 2007, when my husband, our youngest daughter and I were given permanent residence permits, and our two older daughters were granted citizenship. Being of age, they could submit the applications themselves. Since 1993, we always extended our temporary visas on time and we’ve never been without status. My husband’s work permit is being taken care of by his employer, so he’s never had to deal with it himself. This is probably because he does extremely difficult physical work, and is a good worker, but also because the employer is aware that no one else would do the job for such a low salary.

In 1993, 24 people were fired from the hospital where I worked – people without Slovenian citizenship. Myself included. I received an order, which stated that my employment had been terminated because I was a foreigner citizen with my work permit due to expire (an employer can’t enter into a contract with a foreigner that has no work permit). After the incident, I went to the Employment Service of Slovenia to register as unemployed, but I was told that nothing could be done, since I didn’t have Slovenian citizenship, and as such I wasn’t entitled to any compensation or help. Until this day, I haven’t received anything from the country. I haven’t been given any help, even though I have a permanent residence here. I haven’t worked anywhere else. My husband was supporting the whole family with his salary, which wasn’t high enough to cover all the expenses, so he had to do a lot of undeclared work.

After the war had ended, we went back to Bosnia and Herzegovina to apply for the citizenship. They didn’t ask us to cancel our existing registration in Slovenia, and they didn’t ask for any documents. My husband and I still hold Bosnian citizenship, and we only have permanent residence permits in Slovenia, since we can’t acquire citizenship.

There was an official working at the Administrative Unit Jesenice who treated us very rudely. When my husband went there once to arrange his temporary residence permit, she accused him of stealing in the past and even called the police. It turned out she had mistaken him for someone who had a similar surname. Regardless, it was a great shame for us. One day, in the early nineties, she gave us a phone call and told our eldest daughter that her younger sister wouldn’t be able to extend her visa for temporary residence and would have to move to Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the time of the war. Naturally, we got very scared. The same official caused us trouble later on as well. When one of our daughters was arranging a residence permit for her husband from Bosnia and Herzegovina, she refused to tell her which documents to bring at first. Whenever we thought we’d provided everything, she told us there were still documents missing. To get them, we had to go all the way to Bosnia and Herzegovina and back multiple times, which wasn’t cheap.

The period from 1993 onwards was very difficult for the whole family. Constant stress, having to arrange visas on time, and worrying that our permits might not be extended lead to arguments and increased tension between us. The erasure pushed our family into poverty and all three daughters felt underprivileged, compared to their peers and classmates.

In 1993, after we were visited by the police, the older two daughters received a written notice at school, stating that without citizenship, they could not continue to attend, and should enrol in the elementary school for refugees in Jesenice. They went to the school for refugees for a year or two, until we arranged temporary residence permits. We then obtained an official notice allowing them to return to their previous school. After that, both of them finished elementary school and enrolled in high school normally, even without citizenship. The youngest daughter was in kindergarten all that time without complication. Luckily, all three of them now hold Slovenian citizenship. They each applied after turning 18, and were accepted. In order to arrange their citizenship, we had to bring certificates of no criminal records from Bosnia and Herzegovina for all three of them, including the youngest, who’s never even lived there.

I was born in Serbia. Our family moved to Slovenia when I was 8 years old. Despite the culture shock I experienced upon first contact with Slovenia, I assimilated quickly, and having a talent for languages, I learned the language fast. I must say I wasn’t a target of any mistreatment on account of my origins, probably because I wasn’t a weak person. Children can quickly detect the weak and start teasing them. They did try something like that with me, but gave up quickly, because they didn’t trigger any reaction.

The erasure occurred when I was a second year student of the Faculty of Arts. Because I’ve always been well informed, I knew I had to obtain citizenship by submitting an application by the end of 1991. The problem arose because I only had a copy of my birth certificate instead of the original issue. When I went to Mačkova Street to submit the citizenship application, it was rejected for this reason. It was clear to me that I couldn’t obtain the original at the time. It was impossible. It proved to be an extremely difficult task even afterwards. I tried to convince an employee to accept my application anyway, I even pleaded to her, but I couldn’t make her change her mind. She didn’t want to accept my application; however, she wrote on a tiny piece of paper that they’re missing the original copy of my birth certificate and put a date next to it. As it turned out, it was that piece of paper, which I’d happened to keep, that later solved my problem, or at least helped a lot.

After the deadline for submitting citizenship applications as outlined by Article 40 had passed, I knew there would be trouble, which really proved to be the case later on. However, there has been plenty of luck involved in my story. I’m well aware of it, and very thankful, too.

The first thing I was lucky to have was permanent residence, and that was of vital importance. The next significant thing was the fact I held an account with Ljubljanska Banka – based on that permanent residence. The problem was my faculty. Having no documents or status, I couldn’t continue my studies, and that left me marked. I actually could have continued five years later, but the study syllabuses had changed so much in that time that it would have been too complicated and difficult. I had bad luck with my driving test as well. I passed the first part of the practical test in June 1991, and I think the erasure happened right on the day I was supposed to take the main test at Roška Street.

Because I didn’t have any other documents, I lived in a sort of fear and suspense. I felt uneasy and uptight, and that was in the middle of a period in which a young person is supposed to develop towards their full potential. Being erased prevented me from achieving that.

I knew all that time that I shouldn’t leave the country. This played an important role in obtaining the notorious birth certificate. My parents lived in Bosnia, and my sister moved there later. I was quite young at the time, and not entirely independent. I was very roughly thrown into the real, independent world. I had difficulties adapting at first, and I also suffered from depression. I had to grow up overnight. The first two years were especially unpleasant.

I was aware that I was in the middle of a delicate situation, so I tried to avoid any possible circumstances which would require me to present my ID. To try and pass the border? I knew I couldn’t do that. I didn’t have any problems with the police. I lived with an existential threat hanging over my head, and I was afraid of being deported. I realised I was in real danger, but I can imagine the shock being even bigger for those who didn’t know what was going on. I did, and that was very important. It was why I always tried to avoid unpleasant situations. Those who didn’t know – probably the majority of all the erased – only found out when the police punched holes in their documents. That must have been even worse. I was very nervous and lived in fear.

The public didn’t talk about the erasure for a long time, and the media scarcely reported about it. Personally, I read the newspaper every day, because I’m interested in politics and current events, and I always like to be informed. So, people like me knew what was going on. Others, who didn’t really care about such things, couldn’t know. The significance it held for people coming from the states of the former Yugoslavia wasn’t stressed hard enough. They didn’t know what it meant in terms of further living in Slovenia. I knew. I was very well aware of it all. The erasure shrank my world immensely! I lived very cautiously for four years, having to look over my shoulder. I knew I had a problem that I had to solve. According to Article 40, I met all the demands of acquiring citizenship, and I thought it extremely unfair that I wasn’t able to. I wasn’t passive. I wanted Slovenian citizenship.

As I said before, I was quite fortunate in this unfortunate situation. After the erasure, I got married to a lawyer. My husband’s mentor, an esteemed expert in the field of law to whom I’m immensely grateful even today, presented a solution to my problem. He explained that my application, despite being incomplete, should have been accepted, and then reviewed later. The proof that I wanted to submit the application on time was the aforementioned little piece of paper. By requesting “restoration of the previous situation”, I managed to obtain citizenship retroactively under Article 40.

After I had acquired citizenship, I immediately went to Bosnia to see my parents. It was a very emotional reunion, as my parents had never visited me in Slovenia during that time. My father felt very hurt by the whole situation, and he refuses to go to Slovenia even today. He felt betrayed. The country he had defended his whole life turned its back on him. He was sure that the things could have been settled in a different manner, like I’m sure they could’ve been, and should have.

I was erased for about four years. During that time, I managed to acquire my original birth certificate with great effort. Legal experts later explained to me that I should have been able to obtain citizenship even without it. I was lucky. I’m aware that not many had as much luck as me. I can imagine the fate of the people who weren’t so lucky, who weren’t as informed as me and who didn’t get legal advice. It never occurred to me to demand any compensation, even though the erasure had quite a significant effect on my development as a young person, and therefore lessened the quality of my life.

One of the many things I was lucky about was the fact that I had never had any significant health issues. I was young and I wasn’t ill. Sometimes, a problem arose when I needed antibiotics, but we found a way. I asked others to get them for me. And I paid for the dentist myself. I’m not sure how that would work nowadays.

The worst memories I have from that period were the visits to Mačkova Street. You went there to try to find out what you could and should do to remedy the situation… Those visits were the worst nightmare a person can imagine. They were definitely the worst moments of my life. I’d like to mention two very emotional examples. The first one was the waiting room. All those faces… It was something I’ll never forget. You could see so much helplessness, despair and suffering in their eyes. Lines of waiting people. You had to wait at least two hours every time you visited this misery of life. The peak of it all was when it was finally your turn to enter the office. I’ll never forget that office, as I’ll never forget the person who worked there. He must have been a sadist, enjoying his power and showing it off shamelessly. We were second-rate people in his eyes, to put it mildly. He was handicapped; one of his arms was missing. This person has so many of my tears on his soul. Every time I came from his office… He was supposed to be there to help you solve your problem, but instead he took delight in telling you that you were in a hopeless situation and there was nothing you could do. I didn’t exactly understand what his function was. That was why I demanded someone else to talk to, as I couldn’t get anywhere with someone who had no intention to help. But all I got was a gruff reply that I couldn’t get past him, that he was a fortress protecting… whatever there was to be protected from us poor souls. It seemed his sole purpose was to get pleasure and gloat over our helplessness and our tears. He never used any insults – there was no need for them when he could easily convey to us what kind of people we were in his eyes. The worst part was that his contempt wasn’t even directed at our actions, it was directed at our very existence.

Even though I didn’t know or associate with any of the other erased, it was crystal clear to me how someone who wasn’t educated and informed must have felt when they found out about the erasure by getting their documents seized. It was clear to me. I’m not saying I’m not an ordinary person. Of course I am, but what made me different from most was that I was informed. It hurt me to see how society fell for demagogic claims that what had happened to the erased had been their own fault. I knew it was the opposite. It was more than obvious that they were doing us an injustice.

I think the question of compensations isn’t even relevant. I’m sure most of those people didn’t think about demanding them, and neither did I. The real question was a lot more moral and existential. Putting the blame on others saying they hadn’t done enough seemed monstrous. It took me a while to understand the full scale of the problem, though I admit that I didn’t give it as much attention as I could have. It was such a painful chapter in my life that I wanted to forget it as soon as possible. It also took a while before I learned about the two associations of the erased via the media. I think the media played a very problematic role in this whole thing. Their reports weren’t constructive – they supported putting the blame for the erasure on people and incited intolerance towards the erased.

In my opinion, the erasure was connected to some sort of a tantrum, which was also present at the formation of the country. This was a bad start, since Slovenia had shown a lot of potential and had enjoyed a good reputation in the former Yugoslavia, among other things. It was probably about the greed of those in power and the deception of the people. I’m not sure how to put it. It was about some inexplicable desire, perhaps a desire to have 20 different kinds of yoghurt on the shelves, like they had seen in neighbouring Italy and Austria. Maybe it was an inferiority complex. Proof that they were better than the former Yugoslavia. Maybe. It was definitely reflected in a general contempt for everything coming from Yugoslavia. There was a lot of black-and-white thinking, and everything coming from the former states was bad and needed to be erased from its history, its essence, and its future.

I’d never had any troubles due to my origins before the erasure. But I do think nationalism was growing stronger in the years preceding the independence. The language played an important part in differentiation. A lot of people coming from the former states spoke Slovene badly or with an accent. They were quickly identified, and perhaps automatically treated differently because of that. My Slovene was perfect. I’ve never hidden the fact I’m a Serb, I’ve always spelled my surname with a ‘ć’, and so on. I wouldn’t say I’m proud of the fact, because I think labelling people like that is completely wrong. But I’m sure I had less trouble because I could speak Slovene, which probably also affected my story. The only place where I didn’t have any advantage over the rest due to my knowledge of the language was at Mačkova Street. They didn’t treat me any differently despite my scolarly Slovene.

I’m convinced that stressing nationalism and taking pride in belonging to a certain ethnic group are completely pointless. It makes much more sense to be defined by what you have achieved in your life with your own abilities rather than by where you happened to be born. That’s my personal opinion. The same way I condemn Slovenian nationalism, I condemn others – Serbian, for example. It was about some sort of a domino effect. They say that Yugoslavia fell apart because of Serbian nationalism. I wouldn’t say it contributed to it any more than Croatian or Slovenian nationalism did. Patriotism was often present in Slovenian political discourse at the time, and I think it defines it even today.

I was born in Serbia in 1944. I came to Slovenia immediately after Primary school in 1960, aged 15. Since then, I never lived anywhere else. My brother was already in Ljubljana and he helped me to find a job. I was employed on a regular basis with one company for 30 years. Until 1974, I had lived in residence halls for single persons. In the beginning, I registered temporary residence, but around 1970 I registered as a permanent resident. When I registered permanent residence, I also renounced my – military and civil – residence in Serbia. I worked 12 hours a day, put aside my earnings, and bought an apartment.

In 1982, I married my wife in Serbia where she was from as well. Then she renounced residency in Serbia, and registered permanent residence in Slovenia. At first, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment that I had bought in 1974. My wife got employed in 1981 in kindergarten where she still works today. Later we sold that apartment and bought a bigger one. In 1984, our son was born and in 1985 our daughter, too (today they both have university degrees, and my son is working on his PhD). I had a serious road accident in 1985 after which our situation was very difficult – besides having a full-time job, my wife took care of two little children and me. The doctors’ prognosis was that I will stay paralysed and on a wheelchair. I was in the hospital for a long time. My brother helped me a lot at that time. Then, for about a month and a half, I was in a health resort for rehabilitation, and I pulled through.  Nevertheless, I could not work anymore, and after recovering at home for a couple of years, I retired on disability in 1988. All this time, I had a valid health insurance because I was employed regularly. Therefore, I did not have any problems regarding healthcare due to erasure.

In 1991, I submitted an application for citizenship for the whole family. They accepted my wife’s and children’s application, but not mine, because some documents from my birthplace were missing. Because of the consequences of my accident and a very long recuperating time, I was unable to travel to Serbia where I could acquire the necessary papers, and I had no relatives or acquaintances there who could arrange things for me. At the Administrative unit on Mačkova Street, a clerk, who I remember very well because he was missing an arm, told me that my application is incomplete, and that I will have problems if I do not acquire all the documents. I explained to this clerk that I had a serious accident I am still recuperating from, and that I am unable to travel to Serbia where I have no one who could help me to acquire all the missing documents. The clerk said, “It is not relevant how and where” and that I will be facing problems; as if he knew, what I will be facing. This was, however, in times when the deadline for the citizenship was still open. The clerks at Mačkova were generally behaving badly to immigrants. As soon as you told them you were from Serbia, they started behaving badly.

My wife comes from a different municipality in Serbia, and it was much easier to acquire documents from there. Besides, she still had parents there so they arranged all the documents and sent it to Slovenia. I, on the other hand, had no one there who could help me. Besides, my municipality of birth was near Kosovo where the conditions were much worse.

After the clerk at Mačkova told me, I cannot submit my application for the citizenship I didn’t try anymore. I still had valid identity documents. When my ID card expired, I went to the municipality to extend its validity, but the clerk punctured the card and told me to arrange the documents for foreigners.  That was in the beginning of the 1990′s when the political situation was still tense. When I asked the clerk what I needed to gain the citizenship, she yelled at me and berated me, saying that Yugoslavia fell apart because of people like me.

Because I had time, I visited the administrative unit regularly. After a while, a lady there asked me what I was looking for. When I explained, she directed me to the Ministry of the Interior on the Bethovnova Street. Later, in 2002, someone from the Ministry of the Interior arranged for my citizenship in three months. I do not recall exactly, but I think I acquired citizenship under the Article 19 of the Amendment to the Citizenship Act because there was no need to prove anything, namely, I did not need to bring any evidence. I did not need to attend the Slovenian language course or pass a language test because I had gained Slovenian high school diploma.

In the mean time (from 1992 to 2002), I owned a passport and an identity card for foreigners. I had always taken care of my documents in time, up until I acquired citizenship. Still, this caused me a lot of problems and expenses, too, because I had to prolong visas every year. Even before, all of my documents were issued in Slovenia because ever since we moved to Slovenia, I arranged all documents here.

After I arranged permission for temporary residence in Slovenia and documents for foreigners (I got a visa for permanent residency in a Slovenian passport for foreigners), I could cross borders and arrange Serbian documents in Serbia. In 1992, I went to Austria –my old passport was still valid at that time– to the Yugoslavian embassy to get documents there; a new (red) Yugoslavian passport. With this passport, I could then arrange permission for temporary residence, and with the passport for foreigners I could go to Serbia and arrange other documents there.

I think I got a temporary residence status in Slovenia thanks to my pension; they asked me what my source of sustenance was and I showed them that I receive pension (besides, my wife and children had Slovenian citizenship and we owned an apartment). All 10 years, I had a temporary residence visa. There was no “hole” in between; I was never completely without a status.

At the municipality they asked me if I ever had errands with the police. I refused to answer although I never had any problems with the police. I was never asked for identification, and I was never in fear because I have had my status arranged all along.

I did not suffer any existential problems due to the erasure because I received pension, I had my own apartment, and my wife was employed the whole time. The attitude and the erasure itself, however, hurt me the most. I did everything right and at appointed terms, but I was erased because of my inability to travel to Serbia.

We kept in touch and travelled to Serbia every year for vacations. My wife and I spend a month there each year. I inherited a house after my father in 1980s, and we often went there in 90s as well. Every time we travelled through Hungary. Even in Serbia, I had problems arranging documents because I renounced my residence when I moved to Slovenia. However, if I wanted to get documents, I had to register there. But if I registered in Serbia, I would have to bring a form of renunciation from Slovenia. Since I was not renounced but erased, I had problems arranging a status in Serbia, too. I don’t remember anymore how I managed to register there. Obviously, someone showed mercy to me because I was born there, had a house there, and besides I was ill.

I was aware that the problem was wider and that not only I had problems; many people did. I knew that a lot of people left Slovenia – some only because they couldn’t handle the injustice. In the company where I worked, I heard that sometimes superiors told the immigrants that they don’t need to arrange any documents, but later it was too late and they all ended up without a status, lost their jobs, and mostly moved away. I knew for cases of deportation. Although I knew about it, I never affiliated in the Society of the erased because I thought that those who didn’t manage to arrange their documents have had greater problems.

Nationalism could be felt even before the independence. It was “boiling” long before that. The situation changed a lot, no one trusted anyone, and people grew apart. In the company where I worked, the difference between the Slovenes and everyone else could always be felt.