WASHINGTON: Remember the iconic black-and-white picture of a sailor kissing a nurse that became the defining image of the end of World War 2? Greta Friedman, one of the three women who later claimed to be that nurse, died on Thursday. She was 92. Remember the iconic black and white picture of a sailor kissing a nurse that became the defining image of the end of World War II? Greta Friedman, one of the three women who later claimed to be that nurse, died on Thursday. She was 92.
Friedman’s claim was never settled indisputably over the others. The photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt, kept no records, but he did meet one of the other two women. He died in 1995. The man in the picture remains an unresolved dispute among 11 claims, though George Mendonsa, a veteran and retired fisherman, has had a leading claim for a while.
Friedman and Mendonsa were invited to a 1980 re-enactment of the iconic picture, but they did not kiss again. They remained in touch though, exchanging Christmas cards.
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.
The picture ran full-page in Life. Friedman didn’t know of it until the 1960s, when she saw it in a book of Eisenstaedt’s pictures. When she called Life to say it was her, she was told about an earlier claim.
{{/usCountry}}The picture ran full-page in Life. Friedman didn’t know of it until the 1960s, when she saw it in a book of Eisenstaedt’s pictures. When she called Life to say it was her, she was told about an earlier claim.
{{/usCountry}}Friedman said in an interview archived with Veterans History Project: “Suddenly, I was grabbed by a sailor. It wasn’t that much of a kiss. It was more of a jubilant act that he didn’t have to go back.”