Ljubljana

The “izbrisani” – or the “erased” – are people of Serbian, Croatian or Macedonian origin that the Slovenian state erased from the registries in a sort of coup de main. It affected 25,671 people, my new colleague Uros Skerl explains to me. They had to apply for Slovenian citizenship before a specific deadline, but did not do so either because they were uninformed or did not want to do so. Each of them learned that the state then deleted their names as it were by accident when their name could not be found in the computer, for example at the doctor’s surgery or the registration office. For all of them, this moment was the beginning of a journey into nothingness, which in many cases has not yet ended today.

About 11,000 of the “izbrisani” live in Serbia today; they had no other choice but to leave their families and their homes. There are also very tragic fates, such as that of a Serb who, in the middle of the war between Serbia and Croatia, was deported to Croatia and murdered there. About 300 of the “erased” came to the Slovenian capital city this week to meet with the man who achieved a decisive victory for them with the European Court of Human Rights: the Italian lawyer Andrea Saccucci. Last July, the judges in Strasbourg recognized the deletion of thousands of names as a violation of human rights.

“That was the beginning of my third life,” says one of the men who came to tell this German journalist their stories. All that he has on his person was given to him. But, he still has the strength to keep fighting. He will need it too, for now the task is to make the Slovenian state pay compensation.