Greta Friedman, the woman kissed by a sailor in the iconic picture taken in NY city’s Times Square after the Second World War ended in 1945, has died, a media report said.
Advertisement
Her son Joshua Friedman told the New York Daily News that his mother had been in an assisted care facility for the past two years, and that she died of health complications related to her old age.
Friedman said while everyone saw her a a nurse, the uniform she was wearing was from her job at the time as a dental assistant.
Eisenstaedt took that picture on August 14, 1945, during V-J Day celebrations in Times Square, New York after Japan’s surrender ending the war that started in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and claimed upwards of 50 million lives. CBS News reunited Mendonsa and Friedman in 2012 at the spot of their kiss for just the second time since that day in 1945.
There is also an incredible story behind the kiss – as Ms Friedman and Mr Mendonsa had never met.
Mendonsa was in Manhattan on his first date with Rita Petry.
Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt snapped a photo of a nurse and sailor kissing, but did not get their pair’s names.
In 1980, 11 men and three women came forward, claiming to be the subjects.
Though their passionate embrace might indicate otherwise, Friedman and Mendonsa did not know each other and never had a romantic relationship.
Ms Friedman will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, next to her late husband Misha Friedman. I’m not sure about the kiss… it was just somebody celebrating.
In a 2005 interview with the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project, the Austrian-born Friedman said she later designed dolls’ clothes, worked in summer theatre and became a book restorer.
“It wasn’t my choice to be kissed”, she added. In 2012, the feminist blog Crates and Ribbons published an article criticizing the World War II photo for depicting and glorifying an image of sexual assault committed against Greta Friedman.
Advertisement
The caption read: “In the middle of New York’s Times Square a white-clad girl clutches her purse and skirt as an uninhibited sailor plants his lips squarely on hers”.
