The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 253IT WAS THE BOSNIANS WHO WERE ERASED, BUT DAMAGE WAS SUFFERED BY SLOVENIAN CHILDREN AS WELL253citizenship, only then could I go on with the purchase procedure. This procedure is stillongoing, I’m still a tenant and I still pay the rent.I was lucky that I retained my job despite the erasure, and that it was a permanentjob. My company never asked for a citizenship certificate. I lived illegally but I couldwork. In the company they knew that I was without status. The awkward thing was,that without a personal document, I couldn’t withdraw my wages which were paid tomy bank account. Until 1995 I didn’t have problems because I withdrew money fromATMs. The problem emerged when the bank card had to be replaced, and, naturally, Ihad to submit a personal document. I gave my old ID card, but they didn’t consider ita valid document. How could I get my wages? I told the people in my company that Ihad quarreled with the people in the bank, and from that time on I received my salarycash-in-hand. The problem was that the salary was very low; I still remember the sum:35,000 tolars. But I had a three-room apartment and three children, and the expenseswere almost 50,000. No wonder that I fell ill; the psychological pressure of living on theedge and without valid documents was too great. We didn’t have enough money forfood even, that’s how modestly we lived. My youngest daughter at least didn’t knowwhat she didn’t have, but the older one felt the shortage seriously. All the time she madecomparisons with others – what they had and what she didn’t have. And my boy, forexample, when he was growing up, his feet grew so fast that before the end of threemonths his toes were poking through his sneakers. Where could I get that money to buyhim new shoes every few months?! We both cried as we walked from one shop to anotherto find inexpensive sneakers for him. Delayed payment, in installments, was the onlyoption for me.The shortage affected the two older children too; they couldn’t concentrate andlearn like other children. The older daughter was really hurting because of this; shequarreled with everyone, she was angry with the teachers, she went totally berserk. Hermarks were bad, she barely managed to complete elementary education, and she couldn’tenroll anywhere after that. It was difficult for her; she wanted to be like her friends, herschoolmates but she couldn’t. When she was in the eighth grade she reproached me, sayingthat I wasn’t able to take care of her, that she didn’t need me, and that it was myfault that she couldn’t enroll anywhere. For example, she’d tell me that our neighborwas also a single mother but her children had everything they needed for school. But inaddition to child benefits and her salary, she could also get social support, unlike mewho didn’t have permanent residence. I was blamed and regarded as guilty by the state,by my children, and by my relatives and neighbors.Fortunately, my children were Slovenian citizens through their father, so they receivedchild benefit. But as a single-parent family we couldn’t get social aid, althoughwe would have been entitled to it, given our modest income. My salary and child benefitdid not suffice for normal living. However, the center for social work could not give methis benefit, or social assistance, because I didn’t have the status of a foreigner with permanentresidence. When I brought the shared-household document, one member of thehousehold was missing, so there were fewer people to support. My salary was taken intoaccount when they added up the total income of the household and divided it by the