The flag virtually disappeared from use by the time of World War II , as many European tribes were decimated in the Romani genocide , itself part of the Holocaust . This period also saw many Romanies going into hiding or denying their identity to escape the '' Einsatzgruppen '' or deportation . In one incident reported at Simferopol in 1941 , Crimean Romanies flew the green flag of Islam , hoping to persuade the Nazis that they were Tatars or Turks . Early into the Cold War era , ethnic symbolism experienced a resurgence . The bicolor was reused in France by a Vaïda Voëvod , who on May 24 , 1959 crowned himself King of the Gypsies and formed the International Romani Union . The charter adopted then suggested that green stood for " land covered in vegetation " and a " world without borders " , with blue as a stand-in for " cosmos and liberty " . Unusually , the horizontal display was explained in relation to the vertical flagpole , which represented " the line of profundity of our thinking " ; the adoption of a heraldic device was announced , but postponed for " when the time comes . " By 1961 , Vaïda was contemplating the creation of a Romani state , or " Romanestan " , with the bicolor as its state flag . In this context , the blue was explained as representing freedom
Romani genocide
Romani genocide
Flag of the Romani people