The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 2626 THE SCARS OF THE ERASUREareas. According to the Inter-Municipal Community for Employment, the majorityof immigrants found jobs in industry and construction work (Gulič 1983, 40). Forexample, the construction sector was directly dependent on immigrants, given thatthey accounted for 70 percent of the total number of construction workers (ibid.,46). Most of them lived in dormitory-type facilities, so they could not register aspermanent residents in Slovenia. Dolenc (2007) estimates that around 30,000immigrants without permanent resident status lived in Slovenia at the time whenit became a sovereign country. In fact, people living in facilities intended for temporaryresidence, i.e. those that had the characteristics of shared accommodation(dormitory-type buildings), and in illegal facilities (shanty houses) could not registeras permanent residents in Slovenia (ibid.). To register as a permanent resident,they needed a document proving that they had the right to live at a specific address(a tenancy agreement, a private apartment, or close family relation with a personhaving permanent residence at a specific address or similar). People who foundthemselves in the erased group were relatively well integrated into the local community,21 since most lived in apartments rather than, for example, dormitory blocks(there were 62 such blocks in Ljubljana in 1980), or shanty neighborhoods (therewere 18 of these in 1980) (Vovk et al. 1983). We use the term “integrated” to denotethat they could settle in Slovenia and find employment under terms equal tothose for the rest of the population. Legal and socio-economic integration meantthat they could exercise their rights in the field of employment and housing (obtaina favorable bank loan to buy property and the right to live in a socially-owned apartmentprovided by their work organization), and that they were obliged to pay a contributionto the housing fund, which was deducted from their salary (in Slovenia,these contributions were higher than in other republics, which was reflected in thenet income) (Dolenc 2007, interviews with the erased people). The erasure introduceda reverse process, de-integration, first and foremost legal de-integration,which affected the lives of individuals and their families.The same as any other employed person in Slovenia, the workers who wereerased had contributed to the creation of common property. However, at the timethe socially-owned property was being transformed into private property, theerased people were not given the opportunity to participate in property distribution:they did not receive ownership certificates and could not buy socially ownedapartments at reduced, non-commercial prices. Some tried to make an estimationof the damage they suffered through this:If my wife and I had got a certificate as everybody else did, we would have investedit in Cinkarna Celje, where we had been employed for 20 years. Today we’d haveshares that have some value. If we could have bought the apartment under8 Romana Bešter (2007, 108) defines integration as a multi-directional process that exacts mutual adjustment on thepart of both immigrants and the host society. “In this process, immigrants accept certain norms and rules observedin a new society, while a majority society should open its institutions, adapt these to a new situation and ensure forimmigrants equal opportunities for participation in these institutions.” She further explains that integration also denotesthe features of a social system characterized by social cohesion. It denotes the capability of a society to ensurewelfare for all its members, to minimize inequalities and avoid polarization (ibid.).