The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 148148 THE SCARS OF THE ERASUREwas born in Slovenia, not in Croatia. And although I obtained a Croatian passport, Icouldn’t use it to submit an application for Slovenian citizenship. Despite this, I wasvery happy, a new world opened up for me.Around 2000 the situation began to change for the better for me and my son. Iwent to Croatia and obtained a certificate of nationality and a birth certificate, so allmy documents were in order. When this was fixed, I arranged a permanent residencepermit. I had to submit quite a lot of documents. The fact that my son went to schoolin Slovenia throughout this time was not enough. They said that he could as well havelived with a foster family and that it was not sufficient proof that I lived in Slovenia. Ihad to bring two witnesses to testify that I had lived here for 34 years. I can’t rememberwhen exactly I had to submit the application for permanent residence, but I know thatI had to wait two years for them to reply. My son didn’t have status either, until his father,with whom he resumed contact in 1996 or 1997 after a long time, arranged it forhim. As I said before, my son went to school throughout this time. I paid fees for thekindergarten in one lump sum, and since I never unregistered him from the kindergarten,they automatically enrolled him in school. Nobody asked anything, and I didn’tmention that we were erased. After completing elementary school, he went to grammarschool, and at that time his status was already fixed; he now studies economics; he is agood, hardworking boy. So far I haven’t applied for citizenship, and the problem is financialin nature, among other things. In order to apply for Slovenian citizenship, I’dhave to pay for unregistering my Croatian citizenship, which would have cost me around1000 marks at that time. I didn’t have that money.Some time ago I registered a company that deals in weddings, fortune-telling andclairvoyance. The company is officially registered, and everything has been done as itshould be done. I’m not yet an employee of this company because my revenues are notso high. I will become employed when the company starts to make bigger profits. At themoment I have too many expenses with the rent, for apartment and the company. Theapartment is most important for me, and I don’t want to lose it. Both my son and I areregistered with the company, but my son works through the student employment agency.My son is officially my partner, but I arranged it in such a way that he is not liable inany way for the company.I have only 15 qualifying years for pension officially, since I worked a little bit beforeI came to Slovenia, although I work every day. I’m still several years away from retirement,although I could already be approaching it, since I am almost 60. But I willwork as long as I can, because I like to work. I am aware that I will fall short of pension,since I saved nothing during this time, because I used all the money for the rent, whichwas not low.My son was very upset because of our constant moving, and he was very ashamed.He developed an allergy and I think that the cause was psychological, that it was stress.He was upset because of the shortage of money. My relatives are well-off and could havehelped us if there hadn’t been a war there. During the 1990s, the war was raging in theplace where I was born, and everything that my parents, brother and sisters had wasdestroyed. My relatives fled to Serbia and now they are scattered around. One of my