Friedman didn’t know the sailor, George Mendonsa, who grabbed who he thought was a nurse and planted a kiss.
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The woman kissed in one of the most iconic photographs of all time has died at the age of 92.
Friedman, who had been living at an assisted living facility in northern Virginia, died September 8, CBS reported, quoting her son, Joseph Friedman.
Friedman was 21 years old when the photo was taken as she was kissed by George Mendonsa and their identity was unknown for many years.
Greta Zimmer Friedman, whose iconic kiss was seen around the world in a LIFE photograph taken on V-J Day in NY has died at the age of 92. (AP File ) Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous shot of the same kiss is from a slightly different angle, and captured the euphoric mood of the celebrations on Victory over Japan Day in New York City on August 14, 1945. In fact, Mendonsa was on a date at the time with nurse Rita Petry, who would later become his wife.
FILE – In this April 14, 2015 file photo, people speak next to a famous photograph taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt of a sailor kissing a nurse in New York’s Times Square on V-J Day, right, as they visit the exhibition of German-American “Life” magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt at Moscow’s Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow, Russia. Mendonsa said that in some photos of the scene, Petry could be seen smiling in the background.
Friedman is survived by her two children and her three grandchildren.
The author of “The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II”, Verria said Friedman’s height, hairstyle and uniform matched other photographs of her taken at the time and therefore proved she was the woman in the iconic image. “It was just somebody celebrating”.
Born in Austria in 1924, she traveled to America in 1938 with two younger sisters, fleeing Hitler and the Nazis.
“I’m not sure about the kiss… it was just somebody celebrating”, Friedman recalled in that interview. “It wasn’t a romantic event”.
Greta Zimmer Friedman’s son says his mother died Thursday at a Richmond, Virginia, hospital of what he called complications from old age.
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In 1956, she married a doctor, Mischa Friedman, and moved to Maryland, where she raised a son Joshua and a daughter Mara.
