In memory of Livia B. Plaks – Roma advocate and a voice for the voiceless

Livia Plaks, a woman whose contribution to the Roma cause cannot be
overestimated, died suddenly of a heart attack on February 2 at her home in
Princeton, New Jersey, USA. She was 65 years old. In her, we have all lost a
passionate advocate for equality, minority rights, and Roma. Her intelligence,
charisma and tireless work ethic helped to change perspectives on Roma issues
across Europe. As co-founder of the Project on Ethnic Relations (PER), she was
dedicated to preventing ethnic conflict in Central and Eastern Europe, the
Balkans, and the former Soviet through dialogue and high-level mediation. In one
of her last editorials she reflected: “Crises sometimes help to focus attention
on possibilities for improvement by making clear how much there is to lose.”

Livia Plaks was born in Baia Mare, Transylvania, Romania, to Jewish parents. Her
mother was a survivor of the Holocaust who went through a number of Nazi
concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, as did her cousin Elie Wiesel
(later on a Nobel Prize winner in literature). Livia Plaks grew up on a street
with Roma neighbours, among Hungarians and the Romanian majority. While still a
young girl she left Romania with her parents, first moving to Italy, where they
were held in a transit camp for migrants, and then to the USA, where she
excelled academically and went on to study at Rutgers University.

Her multicultural upbringing, her family’s suffering in the Holocaust, growing
up under the oppressive Romanian communist regime, and her migration as a
teenager – these were her formative experiences. She was acutely aware of and
sensitive to ethnic issues, especially to Roma, with whom she sensed an affinity
because of a shared historic past and commonality of experience in the
extermination of Jews and Roma under Nazism.

It is, however, her work following the fall of communism that made her so
important to a whole generation of Roma activists and leaders.

PER was founded by Allen Kassof and Livia Plaks in 1991 in anticipation of the
serious interethnic conflicts that were to erupt following the collapse of
Communism. PER aimed to initiate and institutionalize dialogues between majority
and minority leaders on sensitive issues of ethnic relations based on three
principles: sustained and frequent dialogue is the best means of bringing about
the long-term reconciliation of differences; dialogue must be removed from the
sphere of partisan political competition to a protected space; continued
dialogue not only provides opportunities for the discussion of divisive issues
but also helps to transform such discussions from exceptional to normal events.
With this approach PER was successful in improving the prospects for ethnic
accord in several countries of Central and Southern Europe, especially Romania
and Slovakia (relations with their Hungarian minorities), Bulgaria (the Turkish
minority), Macedonia and Montenegro (relations with their Albanian minorities).
It was especially active in the conflicts between Serbs and Albanians. And
throughout the entire region, PER was the pioneer in raising the issue of the
Roma minorities.

It was Livia Plaks who was in charge of the Roma portfolio at PER, first as
PER’s Executive Director, and from 2005 as President. Trailblazing work with the
Roma began in May 1992 when PER organized a landmark meeting in Stupava, near
Bratislava, Czechoslovakia– the first encounter between Central and East
European officials and leaders of the Romani communities. This was followed in
April 1993 by a gathering in Snagov, Romania that was organized in cooperation
with the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

After the anti-Roma mob violence in Hadareni, Romania in 1993, it was she who
pushed for an international field visit to Hadareni and other localities where
violence against Roma took place, with a team of leading experts on ethnic
issues including Donald L. Horowitz of Duke University and Valery A. Tishkov of
the Russian Academy of Sciences. She took the initiative in focussing official
American attention on Roma issues when, in 1994, she brought a group of four
Roma leaders to testify on anti-Roma violence before the U.S.

House of Representatives Human Rights Subcommittee. PER was among main
supporters in the creation of the Roma Contact Point at the OSCE at the Warsaw
Seminar on Roma in 1994, and later funded the first Roma interns at the Contact
Point. It was her idea to establish the PER Romani Advisory Council (PERRAC) – a
team of prominent Romani leaders, activists and experts from Central and Eastern
Europe, Russia, and the United States that advised PER on its projects and
helped to develop Romani policies for the international community and for
national governments. PERRAC functioned as informal think tank, generating new
ideas and concepts to address Romani issues. It was Livia Plaks who persistently
encouraged systematic analysis and action by Roma scholars and activists, and
who supported the preparation and publication of the 1997 study “Roma in the
Twenty- First Century: A Policy Paper,” which became the key reference paper for
many activists and policy makers.

PER held ground-breaking meetings in several countries of the region that led to
the adoption of new policies. It brought government officials and Roma involved
in policy-making to Brussels, where members of the European Commission discussed
the importance of effective state policies toward the Roma with EU candidate
countries during the pre-accession period.

PER and Livia Plaks helped to lay the foundation for the evolving Roma movement
and the formation of its political leadership that represented us in dealing
with national governments and the international community. Over the years, PER
issued 33 reports and policy papers devoted to Roma; each report analyses and
reflects on the most critical on-going issues and offers action recommendations.
Most were edited under her supervision. 　

They form a body of knowledge and insight that students of Roma issues will
refer to for many years to come.

Livia and PER were always for Roma, ready to support and provide space and voice
to us and to our leaders. Livia knew most of us personally, whether old and
traditional, or young and modern, whether in Romania, Bulgaria or Hungary or the
Western Balkans.

Through her work with PER and her engagement and commitment to Roma, she earned
our trust and respect. Her sudden passing is a sad day for us.