The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 7979An erased person’s story“AS IF I WERE CLIMBING MOUNT EVEREST” 1In 1992, I was barely 11 then, we impatiently waited for the postman, who firstbrought an invitation for my sister to come to the administrative unit. She fixed herpersonal documents there. Two months later they invited her again to come to the administrativeunit and bring her new documents. This time they took away her documents– the ones they had issued two months earlier – punched them and said theyweren’t valid any more. I remember the day when she came home, she was very sad,she cried, my sister; she was 15 at the time and she was arranging documents on herown. I didn’t understand anything. I still waited for the postman, but I soon could seethat I wouldn’t get Slovenian citizenship. I didn’t have problems at school, but I didn’ttell anyone that the postman hadn’t come. Towards the end of elementary school myschoolmates were making decisions about where to continue their schooling, but I knewthat I needed personal documents to enroll in secondary school. I didn’t feel like learningany more, so in the seventh grade I replaced the classroom with the basketball groundin front of our apartment block.I grew up in one of the rougher neighborhoods in Slovenia, in Fužine, where therewas a lot of police supervision. I had to hide all the time out of fear that they would findme. The manager of the building where our non-profit apartment was located asked meif we had citizenship. I naturally told him that we did. Had I told him that we didn’thave it, God knows what would have happened. I had this feeling all the time that peoplewere suspicious. It’s true that I never had any unpleasant encounter with the police; Ionly talked to them when they, for example, surprised me with some similar question,such as, “Who scribbled over the wall in our building?” Even then I was stiff and frightened.I mainly stayed at home and, in order to avoid bad company, on the playground,1 The erased person’s story is based on the interview held by Marina Vrhovec and Petra Žišt.