In un articolo per The Guardian l’antropologo e scrittore Miha Mazzini ricorda il Febbraio 1992, quando  il governo sloveno cancellò  25000 cittadini dai dati ufficiali, trasformandoli in un solo colpo in immigrati illegali.

Durante le ricerche per il suo libro “ Erasure “, Mazzini scopre storie dolorose e inimmaginabili.

“I took my son to register for secondary school. The clerk rifled through the papers, then stared at me as if refusing to see the boy standing right next to me. Finally, she said: ‘But you don’t have a son. He doesn’t exist.’”

La parola “remigrazione” appare spesso nell’articolo: l’azione del governo sloveno, infatti, sembra anticipare i desiderata di alcuni partiti politici, che vorrebbero allontanare coloro ritenuti “sgraditi”.

For six years, 1.3% of the population hid and survived however they could. They worked illegally for subsistence wages, at the mercy of bosses and landlords. One man locked himself in his flat, eating old canned food, refusing to open the door to anyone. It was a wise strategy. There were cases of the erased returning home to find their locks changed: someone had simply claimed and occupied their flat, realising the victim would have no recourse to call the police.

Tra le testimonianze di terrore, paura, clandestinità e famiglie divise, ci sono anche  racconti di coraggio e generosità:

There were also stories of profound kindness: a citizen who officially contracted every disease imaginable because he kept lending his healthcare card to the erased; a waitress who walked out of her shift with a first aid kit to treat an injured, erased man who had just been thrown out of the hospital. Relying on the kindness of strangers, however, is a lottery I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Nel 1998 la Corte Costituzionale slovena dichiara la cancellazione di quei cittadini incostituzionale ma il percorso verso la normalizzazione, la ricompensa per diritti, finanze, identità perduti diventa un’odissea che per tanti ancora continua.