The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 252252 THE SCARS OF THE ERASUREIn 1991, when they offered citizenship, I didn’t apply. It was said that you couldapply if you wanted, but it wasn’t obligatory. This is what I thought at the time: I’velived here for so many years, I had permanent residence registered in Ljubljana, mychildren were citizens and Slovenes through their father, and I was part of that family,the mother of three children and I had a regular job. In my mind I connected this offerto take citizenship more with the fact that Slovenia was a small country and that, fromthe international perspective, it was better for a country to have more citizens thanfewer. I didn’t think that I was obliged to take citizenship. As a child I could see ourBosnian people going to work in France or Germany. They were foreigners there, butthey had jobs or permanent residence – they lived like equal members. My father livesin Germany even today, but he doesn’t have German citizenship. I couldn’t know thatI was going to lose my rights if I didn’t take citizenship. And how many rights I lost! Allthe rights except the right to work – I was able to keep my job.It truly didn’t occur to me that the state could invalidate my legal resident statuswithout any explanation, any notification. In 1993 I went to Mačkova Street to get acertificate concerning a shared household which I had to submit to the center for socialwork. The clerk asked for my personal document. When I gave her my ID card, shetook it, punched it and instructed me to go to the office for foreigners. When I wantedto get the certificate and didn’t get it, I knew that something was seriously wrong. Butit wasn’t clear to me what was wrong; they only told me: “You aren’t here.” “How come,if I’m here?!” I couldn’t understand what had happened that I was suddenly left withoutpermanent residence. Until then, I had obtained and extended all my documents inLjubljana, but when the country became independent this stopped. My passport anddriver’s license, both issued in Ljubljana, had already expired by that time. Only thendid I begin to realize that I no longer had legal status in this country.It was very important that, after my divorce, I managed to obtain the right to remainin the apartment with my children. However, because of the erasure the purchaseof the apartment became very complicated. Since I didn’t have citizenship, I didn’t havethe right to purchase the apartment. I could purchase it and put it in the name of mychildren, who were citizens and were registered as the users of that apartment. Well,when I realized that it was a problem, I applied for citizenship in the summer of 1992.I couldn’t purchase the apartment, not even on behalf of my children, for two reasons.Since I didn’t have any valid document, I couldn’t get a loan from the bank, althoughat that time I still had a permanent job. The other reason was that the Ministry of Defense,the new owner of the apartment, sued me for unpaid rent. However, this rent wasnot my debt, but my husband’s, who was the previous leaseholder. I became the leaseholderin 1993 when I got the apartment and I paid the rent regularly. The court procedurelasted seven years; the Ministry lost the case, but in the meantime they attemptedto evict me. This was in 1998, when they sent me a resolution stating that I had to moveout. I immediately filed a complaint with the higher court. The higher court establishedthat the debt was incurred during the previous period and that the debtor was my exhusband.When it was resolved and when after thirteen years, that is, in 2003, I got