It was difficult to determine who was having more fun during a recent puppet show at the DuPage Children’s Museum in Wheaton. Was it the children, like 2-year-old Brooke Fadanelli of Naperville, giggling and reaching out to the marionettes of Princess Jasmine, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson as they were brought into the crowd for hugs? Or was it the smiling puppeteer dressed in black?
“I love the children, to have my puppets do magic for them,” says Franceska Spahic of Franceska’s Puppet Theatre. “This is my life; this is when I am happy.”
One quickly learns that working with her puppets–although she calls it playing–is a cherished artistic outlet for Spahic, even a healing therapy, and a reminder of the happy life she led as a highly regarded actress and puppeteer in Bosnia.
That world was left behind forever in 1992, when war came to her hometown of Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Spahic was forced to flee for her life. Even now, her eyes quickly fill with tears when she speaks of her terrifying escape and the hungry months she endured as a refugee.
A slender grandmother who looks far younger than her 65 years, Spahic and husband Safet now live with her daughter Aida’s family in the 100-year-old villa that is credited with giving Villa Park its name. It is there, over Turkish coffee and sweet, heavy Bosnian cakes called hurmasice, that Spahic speaks of her extraordinary life.
Spahic’s professional background is impressive. As an actress, she toured Europe with the prestigious National Theater and appeared in movies and television. After daughters Aida and Zana were born, Spahic discovered that the life of a puppeteer was better suited to motherhood. She rose to the top of this profession as well, with extensive tours, including several visits to the United States.
“Puppet theater is very big in Europe,” daughter Zana explains. “She was famous, perhaps like a Broadway star here.”
To help illustrate the style of life she enjoyed in Bosnia, Spahic brings out a video of a television program called “Good Morning Yugoslavia.” Filmed in 1992, the program features Spahic strolling through the historic streets of old Mostar. A charming 16th Century stone bridge curves gracefully over a river in the background, the sun is shining, and flowers adorn the stone walkways near quaint shops.
The film also showcases her well-appointed home, with Spahic relaxing on a sofa, discussing her career and extensive art collection. The walls behind her are adorned with original artwork by European painters. A few months later, these treasures would be considered spoils of war, or destroyed.
“I was so happy, with so many nice things. I had a beautiful home,” she says, as tears begin to roll down her cheeks. “When I left, I had no idea I would not be back again.”
About a month after the program was filmed, the fighting to settle old scores among the Serbs, Muslims and Croats erupted in Mostar–and with it, the slaughter of innocent townspeople. During her dramatic escape, Spahic had to lie flat on the floor of a bus amid a barrage of shells and sniper fire. The only belongings she salvaged had been stuffed hastily into a small plastic bag.
She brings out another video, filmed only days after her escape, depicting the same ancient streets of Mostar, but in startling, heart-breaking contrast. The historic bridge has been shelled so often it is barely standing. The camera zeroes in on a man risking his life under sniper fire to cross the bridge, dragging a wounded comrade. The once-beautiful streets lie covered in rubble.
“The old part of the city, my home, the bridge, are no more,” she says. “And almost every day, somebody I know is killed.”
Spahic stayed briefly in Croatia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia before finding more permanent shelter in Germany. Fearfully, she waited for news from her husband, who had stayed behind, hoping to save some of their belongings. Soon, however, Safet was also forced to flee the city. Without passport or other papers, he hid–and, remarkably, remained undetected–in a tiny bus bathroom each time they crossed a border.
Reunited in Germany, the Spahics were grateful to be alive. They filed for documents allowing them to join their daughters in the Chicago area, where the young women had settled years earlier for education and career opportunities.
Still, it was impossible not to contemplate all that was left behind. Safet had been the successful head of a manufacturing firm with about 2,000 employees; Franceska was a celebrity with a generous pension that is now irretrievable. The only belongings Safet rescued from their home were the hand puppets Franceska had made to tell the story of “Little Red Riding Hood.”
But soon, with the help of a former professor in Prague, Franceska assembled a troupe of six colorful European folk dancing marionettes. A 3-foot-tall, guitar-strumming Elvis Presley marionette came next, then Michael Jackson.
It was in Germany that Spahic observed Jackson’s popularity and learned that he had donated more than $2 million to benefit Bosnian children. Determined to make a marionette in his likeness as a tribute to his generosity, she had the sequin-gloved marionette created, then wrote to Jackson asking his permission to use the puppet. Jackson granted it.
She has used the marionette to perform “for many, many Bosnian children. They love him, and I always say, `Yes, I have personal permission from Michael Jackson,’ “she says.
The puppets became essential to day-to-day survival in Germany, as Spahic, virtually penniless, performed on the streets and gathered coins in a hat. This money became necessary to buy food; Spahic estimates that she lost nearly 20 pounds during this period. “I was skin and bones,” she recalls.
It took 2 1/2 years and the intervention of World Relief, based in Wheaton, before the Spahics could obtain the papers that admitted them to the United States in 1994. Now they are settled into their daughter’s home, where Spahic fulfills many of the domestic duties for Aida, who works as a doctor, including caring for granddaughter Kristina, 9.
As for Safet, a quiet, reserved man of 72, Franceska says he now spends his days at home watching television and helping in the kitchen. “He is depressed,” she says. “It is so hard to be his age and to lose everything he had saved during his life. He just doesn’t have interest anymore.”
For Franceska, the adjustment has been a bit easier.
“They were very depressed when they came,” noted Rev. Charles Emery of Calvary United Methodist Church in Villa Park, the church across the street from their home, where the family now attends. “Franceska couldn’t even sing (at first). Now she sings in the choir.”
“I started, in singing, to smile again after four years. My life was so sad,” Spahic says, noting that the support from church members has contributed to her healing. “In this church, with these beautiful, friendly American people, I am making quickly friendships.”
Last fall, Spahic thanked the congregation in the best way she knew how: with a performance of “Little Red Riding Hood,” using the cherished puppets Safet had recovered from Bosnia. Spahic created the sets and had the audio portion of the program taped at a professional studio with some parts portrayed by church members.
In December, Spahic created a puppet version of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker,” featuring 30 elaborate puppets made by hand. The premiere performance, rewarded with a standing ovation, was held at the church, although Spahic’s dream is to make it an annual tradition in a larger venue. Currently, she is working on puppets and sets for “The Emperor’s Nightingale,” which will debut at the church in late May.
Spahic has made numerous appearances in the Chicago area and performs often for charity, including programs for the Bosnian Refugee Center in Chicago and a production benefiting refugees around the world that was attended by Gov. Jim Edgar.
One of Spahic’s favorite places to perform is Loyola University Hospital, where she takes her puppets to entertain sick children. During one appearance, she observed a little girl who had been refusing to walk for months.
“In one moment, she walked up and started to follow my marionettes. After performance, the mother cried and hugged me,” she says. “I think that sometimes my puppets are doing magic.”
Although she is at an age when most people are anticipating retirement, Spahic is clearly hungry to achieve more, to recapture some measure of the success she enjoyed in Bosnia. She speaks of re-establishing her acting career and performing far more frequently with her puppets. She also yearns to embrace new, larger projects, including a historic folk tale portraying European culture.
The problem, she laments, is the money needed to create puppets and sets. “What I need is a sponsor, someone who loves the arts,” she says.
But for now, Spahic focuses her gifts on the children. At the conclusion of her performance at the DuPage Children’s Museum, Spahic urges the children to stand, hold hands with her puppets and join in singing a Michael Jackson song appealing for a peaceful world and featuring the lyrics: “A better place for you and for me, and the entire human race.”
“That is my wish for the Bosnian children,” Spahic explained later, mourning the fact that the war, which has caused rifts along ethnic and religious lines, has broken up close childhood friendships as well as endangered their lives.
“I wish for them to be together, to be best friends as they were before, to be in a better place.”
For more information about Franceska’s Puppet Theatre, phone 630-833-3862.
———-
