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Jadranka Fischer; raised money for Croatian orphans

Jadranka Fischer

By Vernon Clark, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted: September 16, 2012

Jadranka Fischer, 65, of Devon, who worked to increase awareness of the war in her native Croatia during the 1990s and raised money to support about 10 Croatian children orphaned during the war, died of lung cancer Tuesday, Sept. 11, at Paoli Hospital.

Mrs. Fischer was the wife of Raoul Fischer, a retired marketing executive with Unisys Corp. in Blue Bell.

In 1992, an exhibition of photographs from the Croatian war organized by Mrs. Fischer was displayed in Washington and Philadelphia, her husband said.

Most of the photos in the exhibit were taken by her brother, Miro Koerner, a war photographer who died in 1993, he said.

Mrs. Fischer was born in Zagreb, Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia, on May 1, 1947, the daughter of Felix and Josephine Koerner, who were businesspeople.

She graduated from the University of Zagreb with a degree in foreign-language education in the early 1970s, her husband said. She then worked teaching English to IBM workers in Zagreb, where she met her husband, whom she married in 1997.

The couple moved as he was posted to England and later to Hong Kong. They first lived in the United States, in Blue Bell, in 1982. They returned to the area in 1990, settling in Devon. They became U.S. citizens in the 1990s, Raoul Fischer said.

He said his wife, who spoke several languages, enjoyed learning and educating others about various world cultures.

After his retirement in 1992, he said, Mrs. Fischer, who had no children, enjoyed sailing with him on the Chesapeake Bay, along the Atlantic Coast, and the Gulf of Mexico.

A funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 18, at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church, 50 W. Walker Rd., Wayne. Burial will be private. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations for lung cancer research.

Contact Vernon Clark

at 215-854-5717 or vclark@phillynews.com.