Paris Conference

(1986)

   A conference-which some books wrongly call the fourth World Romany Congress-that took place in Paris on 22-23 February 1986. It has been called variously an open meeting of the Presidium of the International Romani Union (IRU) or a meeting of the Comité International Tzigane. The main purpose of the conference was to consider the campaign to get reparations from the German government for victims of the Nazi period. This meeting saw one of the last public appearances of Vaida Voevod III, the founder of the modern Gypsy civil rights movement. Some delegates regarded it as a prelude to holding a fourth congress of the IRU in Paris, but efforts to obtain financial backing failed, and that congress was eventually held in Poland.