International performance

In 1949-1950, the new Rozeanu emerged at Budapest: swift as a dragonfly, graceful as a ballerina, impregnable in defense and with the lightning sting of a hornet in attack. Her off-court charm was enhanced, but on the court she was as devastating as a tigress. There was no stopping her winning the World Singles title and sweeping the Romanian team to victory in the Corbillon Cup. The next year in Vienna, she was even better, repeating the performance and adding the Mixed Doubles title. And again, the World singles at Bombay in 1951-1952, and yet again, supremely triumphant in Bucharest in 1952-1953, and with such superb artistry against the best in the world that we are moved in wonder how a woman who could have retired in honor before the War could make a comeback in such magnificent achievements.

Angelica served as President of the Romanian Table Tennis Commission from 1950 to 1957. In 1954, she was awarded Romania’s highest sports honor – the title of Merited Master.

In total, Angelica won six straight Singles championships from 1950 to 1955, the World Women’s Doubles title three times – in 1953 with Giselle Farkas of Hungary, and in 1954 and 1955 with Ella Zeller of Romania, and the World Mixed Doubles crown three times in1951 with Bohumil Vana of Czechoslovakia, and in 1952 and 1953 with Ferenc Sido of Hungary.

In 1956, Angelica lost the World Champion title for the first time in six years to Okaba from Japan, but led the Romanian team to a Gold Medal in the team event and First Place in Doubles with her fellow countrywoman, Ella Zeller.

Angelica’s road to success was not always paved with a bed of roses. The first time she felt persecuted for being a Jew was in the year 1938, when she was not allowed to participate in the World Championships held in London (the anti Semitic Goga-Cuza government was in power in Romania), and during the years 1940-1945, when anti-Semitic rules forbade Jews to participate in sports. In 1948, she wanted to leave Romania together with her husband and daughter, but her husband was imprisoned and was released only a few months later. Angelica was not the type of woman to break down, just the opposite. She trained vigorously and won six World Championships and 17 gold medals. In 1957, when she returned from the World Championship in Stockholm, the Romanian sport authority again harassed her (her husband had already immigrated to Israel). Angelica and other Jewish players found themselves forced out of the Romanian Table Tennis Federation in 1957 when an anti-Semite rose to the chairman position. The Federation canceled her appointment as a federal coach (they only let her have a club coach position, which meant nothing), didn’t renew her license as Emeritus Master of Sport, didn’t send her to international competitions, and didn’t invite her to participate in the Romanian International Championships.

She had a hard time finding a club that would even let her teach table tennis to help her make a living. By chance, she met the President of Romania at the time, Gheorghiu Dej, and relayed her story to him. Angelica told him that her husband wanted to leave the country and maybe this was why she was having troubles. He advised her to get divorced and then he would allow her husband to leave. And this is how it happened; her husband immigrated to Israel and Angelica received back all the titles that had been taken away from her. But this had a very serious effect on her. After a two-year break, it wasn’t the same (she hadn’t played at all for two years, not even trained). She went to Moscow as a team leader and player, and to the European Championships in Budapest and Prague. She succeeded in winning the Women’s Doubles in Budapest and Zagreb, and made it to the Mixed Doubles finals. By this time, Asian countries began to dominate the sport (in 1959, Japan, Korea, and China swept the medals in the women’s team competition).

In Zagreb in 1960, Angelica asked her friend Trude Pritzi to send her an invitation to visit her in Vienna. There she made the very hard decision to not go back to the country where she was born, leaving everything behind in Bucharest, and made immigration to Israel with her daughter.