In 1993 I got a notification that said that I am losing
my job because of unresolved status in Slovenia.
In 1991 I was literally erased.
And then...
Hard times followed. It was really hard to survive
and I had to hide from the police for 7-8 years.
In 1994 something unexpected happened
from the police's and government's side.
The police wanted to see my papers
and they took me to court.
There I had to give a statement,
which they didn't see as valid
and they exiled me from Slovenia.
We organized ourselves on February 26,
exactly ten years from secret erasure
of 18,305 people from the register of citizens.
A civil death happened for those 18,305 people,
the number admitted by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
This civil death lasted for 2, 3, 5,
and even 10 years. For some it continues.
Every night ants built an anthill. But then an elephant
came in the morning and cold-bloodedly stepped on it.
Then the ants counted themselves,
saw how many of them there were and concluded:
Because we are millions strong we can beat the elephant.
They made a plan and attacked the elephant.
They sharpened their weapons, emboldened themselves
and attacked. Among them there was also an ant called Victor.
There was a mess where nothing could be made out.
Suddenly Victor was alone on the elephant. He looked left
and right and saw his comrades screaming below:
Victor, bite him. Victor, bite him.
That's the end of story.
Red soup. Soup.
I didn't come here to take anybody's job.
I'm not an economical emigrant; I came for different reasons,
because my wife wanted to live here with her mother.
I first came to Slovenia as an archeology student,
for some excavation. Back then me and my wife both studied
in Belgrade and after 7-8 years of life together in Belgrade
we decided to live here.
The gypsies came, we want to give them something.
Give them something from that packet there. This one.
You will buy another one, right?
Here, for St. Nicolas day. - Thank you.
Don't film, that's not important.
That's my godfather from lerapetra on the Crete:
Nikolaus Kornarus. And this is father Hrizostmos,
which means one with golden mouth.
And that's me, a new sheep in Christian Orthodox flock.
That's my Olga and some other person from Serbia,
who was then, 20 years ago, on Crete with us.
This man wanted to baptize me. I haven't been baptized before.
My father was a communist.
This man wanted to marry Olga and me, and I told him
that's impossible because I haven't been baptized.
He said he would baptize me and so it happened
in a church in lerapetra on Crete.
Augustus Marcus Aurelius Caracala in the year 212
in Rome gave citizenship to every resident of Rome.
Many years later Mr. Bavcar erases all foreigners
from the register and makes them ex-lege people,
as is written in this document. Civilization acted
back than vice versa; you live here, you are ours!
Instead Bavcar shoots a burst of gunfire: 18.000 people.
I am Mrs. Kovac, born on 14. 02. 1958 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
I came to Slovenia in 1976.
I married a Slovene. I have two children, who are grown up now,
a daughter 27 and a son 22. I am erased.
My son went to Italy. I hugged him,
I accompanied him to his car, kissed him and he left.
When he heard he has to ask for a citizenship he came back
and filed a request. A lady at the municipality office
questioned him, the same one that took my papers
and tore them and threw them in the trash.
Because he was born here he came for his citizenship documents
and she said he couldn't get them because he was born
in Montenegro and he should ask there.
He said the information was wrong, that he was born
on Solar 36, and yes, and no. Then he came to me and told me
what happened. We went down there and argued with her.
It wasn't fair, because the child lived here.
I can't understand how this is possible.
There is no record in a book of births.
She asked him where he works and he said in Italy. She said:
Then the Italians will give you a citizenship. Go there.
Mr. Marjan Kompara, a chief of the Sector for Foreigners
and of the Office for Passports and IDs, tore up my passport.
He took scissors and tore it like this. He cut it in halves
and said: Here's, your passport. So I asked him:
Sir, what have you done with my passport? How will I travel now?
Well, he said put wings on or take a plane or a helicopter
and go back to were you came from!
You don't exist anymore...
I don't want to sound like an academic, but for me this
is a civil death. They say you've been transferred
to another registry, but for me, this is a registry of nothing,
below the zero, a minus. You don't exist anymore
and you are illegal. You aren't a member of your family anymore.
It wasn't a bureaucratic mistake. Some computer didn't break.
Someone intentionally didn't write it down.
Here are even more documents. After I tried to tell the lawyers
that I am a father, and prove it with the documents, they said:
You can't be the father! They write it down with calm
that you can't be the father! Fatherhood must be confirmed
by another country. You don't live in this country,
because they stole it all from you.
My spermatozoa don't do it here.
Was my baby made by St. Peter? That's what first occurred to me.
Really. Did St. Peter make my child? Next time I make a baby
I'll shoot a porno movie as a proof. I can't do much more.
We don't belong to the gypsies from Dolenjska nor to those
from Murska, who are simply people that live like parasites.
We are working people. We are creative people.
We are people who want to have the status of any other person,
because we deserve it. That's important.
They stole permanent residency from me.
They erased me from the register and now I have no status here.
I didn't even know it. When I went to municipality,
no one even told me that I was erased. It didn't occur to me.
What would that mean? I just knew that something wasn't right
since a woman who worked there also said that someone will be
responsible for this someday. You can't tell me I don't exist
anymore as I am here. I have a family here.
I was 16 years old when I first came here.
My first document and my whole life,
everything has happened here.
I met Marko Perak, who was looking for a way out, like me.
Then I reported it to NGOs I also informed Helsinki monitor.
A president of HM sent Marko Perak to meet me
as I was on a hunger strike. On the first day of my strike
only Marko Perak and a consul of Yugoslavia, Usurevic came.
Marko Perak was getting me pencils and papers
for the next couple of days as I had to write messages.
I think he understood what was going on. He then slept at HM
and tried to do something with their help.
Then we simply formed an association. We found 10 people,
only 5-6 of them were erased, because they were scared.
The energy of these 5-6 people lasted for a while and then
we made an association, which they, didn't want to legalize.
Look, the sun came to our Haloze.
Not only then, also today, we really need anyone
who is willing to work with us. He has some principles of his own
and as I know he is not a member. - If he wants to work with us
he should become a member. - Not necessarily.
He can work from outside. - His business. - Let's move forward.
That's what we discussed last time. - Let's move forward.
Even after 2 years of fighting people are too frightened
to write their names on the envelope. No address...
Fear! They are still frightened to fight for what was taken away
from us, to give back what was stolen away from us. Enough!
The members are afraid to sign a statement.
They are frightened to be seen in front of the cameras.
They are afraid to speak out in public unless the picture
is blurred and the sound is changed. They are afraid
to show their houses and families, which is understandable.
They are afraid to put any money on the Association's account,
because the name stays registered. In general they are afraid
of any record connected to the Association...
Of course some are also ashamed that they are erased,
especially intellectuals. They are not members at all.
In Slovenia there is an atmosphere where they are ashamed
to be part of such an amorphous group of uneducated, uncultured.
A policeman from the police station Moste took my passport.
He brought me to the station and he had me in procedures
until 4 or 5pm, that is he has me locked in there, to wait.
In the end they brought me to Temporary Center for Foreigners,
on Celovska street, the asylum, and they said I will spend
the night in there and the next morning they will exile me
from Slovenia. So I asked why. If I wasn't on trial
how can the police decide by themselves to force me
out of the country if I wasn't even before the court.
I spend that night with the illegal immigrants,
Bangladeshis, Chinese, all kinds of people. More than 50.
The next day I called the Ministry of Internal Affairs
and asked them what was happening to me.
Children were born here and they didn't get citizenship
because they were erased in 1992. And that year they
were exiled from Slovenia so they had to go somewhere.
So they went to Germany and they stayed there.
They couldn't get in or out.
I should have gotten a citizenship instead of a visa.
The visa doesn't belong to me, but citizenship does.
I am 81 years old.
They did it illegally. I am 81 yrs old and I need
a hand when I walk because I don't see. I don't see at all.
I was in a hospital for 18 days. They said they cannot erase me
because I'm blind.
I can't go anywhere. My brother's daughter died
in Germany and I couldn't go to the funeral because
I didn't have any documents. Isn't it sad, comrades?
Look here. A permanent resident's visa without number.
I am not registered. Nowhere.
Every cop can deport me.
They say that's the law, which naturally is not true.
Hit the poor guy. Ha, ha...
Fascists, fascist...
They just moved us out, carefully, on paper.
Who can stand it can stand it. Some really left
but the majority stayed. How could we go for god's sake?
Here you built your house. Here are your wife and children.
Look how stupid they are. They thought we would all just go.
We would leave health insurance, our apartments, our cars also,
because they destroyed our driving licenses.
You know how it goes. And then we were supposed to leave.
How could you just go like that? We acted the other way around.
We stuck to our families, to our children, like ticks.
Here is only a part of unlucky people, a part of aggressors.
Here are the aggressors.
Enemies of the state. - Yes, they are without papers for 12 years.
They took their jobs, flats, whole properties, freedom,
they took it all, pensions, social security,
they took it all away from them.
They want to take my house by force. They want me to pay
11.000 SIT a month, despite not even a dog could survive here.
Todorović slept over with me for 3 nights.
It is falling apart, ruins. Over there I prepared storage
for winter, here I used to keep cheese and Kajmak.
I asked the court to let me buy it. I am not leaving it alive.
I made 100 phone calls to invite people to help us.
We will have to be beside this man, all the time,
I don't know how long will he go on. - Why is he on strike?
He has three sons. He can't go out and they can't go in.
That's R. - It's turned upside down.
We will read the letter I wrote today in a café in a hurry
because we try to solve all the problems in a single day.
And that's it. In the letter we are calling for responsibility
and threatening a lawsuit. Really we're just calling on
the mayor to be humane and principled
but we are threatening to sue the director of the municipality
and I think we will sue him. - Why are you doing it?
Because this man is on the eighth day of a hunger strike.
Only yesterday we managed to convince him to start eating.
Why is he on strike? - He is erased.
His family is broken and he is not equal to others.
Let's go to the municipality. The media has been informed
to meet us there. Nobody will wait for us. We will read
the letter outside. Of course, you'd rather go for a coffee
instead of seeing whether they are waiting for us.
If they will wait at all. - They will, they have to.
Respected Mr. Mayor, 22 people of the Board for the Protection
of Drago Debetic, who is on a hunger strike, together with
a local board of erased residents of the Coastal Region has come to
some positive movements in the last 8 days. We think
we have managed to convince him. Drago Debetic is only one
of several hundred erased in your region. The Debetic family
is deliberately and permanently broken because of illegal actions
by Municipality of Koper. We ask you to consider the problem
seriously, legally and humanely, not politically. Tensions
are getting bigger and problems can start anywhere and anytime.
We know for many tragedies, including the loss
of health insurance, paid for for 30 years, denial of pensions,
deliberate destruction of documents, dislocations,
taking away parental rights, deportations from people's homes.
We hope you are strong enough to at least in Drago Debetic's case
to ask of the Municipality of Koper
to respect the constitutional order. Board for the Protection
of Drago Debetic. Thank you.
I don't agree. I did my job. I take all the comments, though.
People are maximally informed. People don't see the path
ahead of them, so they wait. But that's their right.
I am satisfied.
I do my job. If people don't need it what can I do?
Is that true? - Let's go for a drink.
They summon Mujo to court and tell him: For your offense
we sentence you to two years in jail. What can you say
in your defense? Mujo says: Go fuck yourselves!
The Judges go crazy and have another meeting.
Then they come back and say: Mujo, because you said that
to the court you will get 3 more years. What do you say now?
Mujo again says: Go fuck yourselves!
This repeats for six times and they get to 50 years of jail.
For the last time, judges have a meeting and tell Mujo:
Mujo, the court forgives you but go fuck yourself!
I went on a hunger strike in front of the Zoo.
That was crazy. Why in front of the Zoo?
It was about starting with amoeba
and showing that I am still alive.
That somehow through a monkey I come to a human.
A cop started to tease me with bad words. Calling me a Jew.
What kind of rights do I want? Go back where I came from.
I said: Mr. Policeman, you are talking inappropriately
for a policeman. Behave yourself, please.
I am not obliged to respect you, go back, he said. So I said:
Sir you should just put me against the wall, like Hitler,
or send me to a gas chamber. Why are you rejecting me?
I have a house in Ljubljana, you don't have any right.
Do you know about the opinion survey in Germany in 1956?
They showed movies from Auschwitz and they said no.
They themselves are responsible. That's it.
Who? We were erasing people? Of course not.
Here my land starts. Here I planted 400 apple trees.
It is all mine here on the left and right from here.
I have a forest with one tree. Now there are two already.
Another tree has grown. Across the river is also all mine.
I have a forest with one tree.
My wife would like to sell and I don't,
even though it's falling apart.
All you can see on left and right is mine. I built this.
My house burnt down and forest is growing around.
Look the tree has grown out of my house.
When did it burn down, 1997? Yes in 1997 he burnt it.
A neighbour? - Yes, a neighbour. He is an alcoholic
and besides I was a zero then. Naturally.
And he was a citizen and I wasn't.
They never proved it was him, because there are no witnesses.
That's how it ended. I know the whole story how they did it.
They enjoyed it. They burnt my house. They admitted it.
I gave them a drink and they admitted it all.
Or they tell the neighbors to show off. They came,
burnt it and went to that hill over there to watch it burn.
But it didn't burn. Then they broke in, two of them.
They took my clothes out of the closet and burnt them
in the middle of the house, and after that it burned.
The fire brigade came. I don't remember what was the time
and they put out the fire. A nice monument remains.
It was really nice here. It was really nice.
I hope today is a day to talk in person like people. Maybe
this beginning will seem formal to you, we can continue after
the conference and finally break the ice of hatred.
You don't have any right to speak about injustices
because your father was a public prosecutor in Dachau processes.
Excuse me! Mr. Kreuh! My father has nothing to do with you.
Aren't you ashamed?! - You don't have any moral right.
Excuse me, Mr. Kreuh,
tell me what's your fault and what's mine.
We, veterans didn't interfere with the problem of erased
and we don't plan to do it. - That's not true!
You didn't hear any word about the erased from me. I am here
today because I got an invitation and I came so that Mr. Perak
won't say to me I didn't come because I was afraid.
And I tell you again with full responsibility: Veterans have
nothing to do with the erased, but we have to do with those
that acted against the state. Against those we will always
take steps. That has to be clear. Slovenia is being compared
to Nazi Germany. I won't allow it. We didn't fight for that.
These are Mr. Hanzek's words. - Mr. Hanzek is not reliable.
Yet another example of a person that is not willing to talk.
How could I talk to you? - Excuse me, sir. You wanted something?
You are distorting it, because you didn't listen and you say
only what you want to hear. Just that and nothing else.
If you listened to others you would speak differently now
but you don't. You are saying something else again.
Would you let me speak? - No, they tell you all the time
that you are only speaking one thing over and over again,
what you want to say, you don't listen to what we told you.
Aco, please. - Leave me alone. I have to ask the state
to let me live with my family. Do you know they erased me
from the household of my family? You don't know it. I had to pay
taxes to live in my own house. You don't know that.
You are acting like a big fighter for human rights.
How many of our fighters for Slovenia is without a job today?
Is a right to work in a constitution? It is.
And they don't have jobs. - Bravo! That's how it is!
They are great! Great, pure geniuses.
But we have caught them in crime. It's not obvious yet.
It has to be obvious with a bare eye.
I don't want to die. But if I have to die it's still better
to die with a goal than just like that, he came and died.
Everything else goes on. In those 10 days of my strike
I didn't do much. Fine, I did something: I realized
I have to do it differently. You can't do anything with
self-destruction, with dieing on a hunger strike.
I have to do it differently. Now I really can die.
I mean it. Now I can die. Maybe a little bit more...
Because now it is obvious what democrats did...
humanists, fighters for human rights.