Farkas Paneth (23 March 1917,

Cluj ; hu, kincses város) , official_name=Cluj-Napoca , native_name= , image_skyline= , subdivision_type1 = County , subdivision_name1 = Cluj County , subdivision_type2 = Status , subdivision_name2 = County seat , settlement_type = City , le ...

Austro-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

– 23 June 2009, Cluj,

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

) was a Jewish-Romanian

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

player and coach who played for

. He started playing on a tailoring table using firewood instead of a net. As a player, he won two Romanian Cup titles, nine national champion titles in the doubles and mixed competitions, and several runner-up prizes in the individual competition. In 1936, when he was playing

Alojzy Ehrlich Alojzy "Alex" Ehrlich (1914 – 7 December 1992), also called "King of the Chiselers," was a Polish table tennis player, widely regarded as one of the best players in Polish history of this sport, who three times won silver in the World Tabl ...

, a Pole, at the

1936 World Table Tennis Championships The 1936 World Table tennis, Table Tennis Championships were held in Prague from March 12 to March 18, 1936. The championships were criticised for the bad management and poor tables. The Lucerna Palace arena (a 4,000-seat, underground concert hal ...

in Prague, one of their exchanges lasted for two hours and twelve minutes. The Romanian team ( Viktor Vladone, Marin Vasile-Goldberger and Farkas Paneth) won a silver medal in that competition. He coached both local teams in Cluj and the Romanian national teams, many of his disciples (

Angelica Rozeanu Angelica Rozeanu (née Adelstein) (15 October 1921 – 21 February 2006) was a Romanian table tennis player of Jewish origin, the most successful female table tennis player in the history of the sport, winning the women's world singles title 6 ye ...

Maria Alexandru Maria Alexandru (née Golopența) (born 30 December 1939 in Plugova) is a former Romanian table tennis player. Table tennis career From 1957 to 1980 she won several medals in singles, doubles, and team events in the Table Tennis European Champi ...

, Șerban Doboși, Radu Negulescu, Dorin Giurgiuca, etc.) winning 16 world gold medals and 32 European titles (including youth competitions). While he coached CSM Cluj, his team won the

European Club Cup of Champions The European Club Cup of Champions, often known as the European Cup or ECCC, was a table tennis competition for European club teams. It was organized by the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU) annually for men's and women's teams. It was first held i ...

five times. A member of a rabbinical family, he managed to escape twice on the way to

concentration camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

s. He was the subject of a documentary movie by Steven Spielberg about the life of the Jews during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. He was an avid stamp collector.

Awards and honors

*"Cultural Merit" Medal for Sport, Second Class (1936) *Honored Coach (1951) *"ITTF Merit Award" (1993) *National Medal for Merit, Third Class (2000) *Honorary Citizen of Cluj *A table tennis tournament in Romania is named in his honor

Books

*''Paleta și planeta'' (with Gheorghe I. Bodea), 1997 (first edition), 2003 (second edition)

References

External links

Obituary ITTFInterview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paneth, Farkas 1917 births 2009 deaths Sportspeople from Cluj-Napoca Romanian Jews Austro-Hungarian Jews Romanian male table tennis players Holocaust survivors World Table Tennis Championships medalists

Awards and honors

Books

See also

References

External links