Death the protagonist of one of the world's most famous kisses

This is perhaps one of the most famous images representing the celebrations of the end of the Second World War. And one of his protagonists, George Mendonsa, died this Sunday at the age of 95. The American exmarine was photographed kissing a stranger in Times Square, New York, celebrating the end of the contest.

This woman, Greta Zimmer Friedman, was 21 years old at the time of the photograph. She works as a dental badistant. Friedman died in 2016 at the age of 92. And now, it is what has been done to kiss him pbadionately to celebrate the victory of the US Army on Japan during what is called the day of victory over Japan (VJ Day).

His daughter Sharon Molleur announced that her father died last Sunday after a crisis in a retirement home where he lived in Middletown, Rhode Island (United States).

The photo was taken by Alfred Eisenstadt to be part of a report from the US Life magazine about the end of the war.

Eisenstadt did not give the names of the strangers who kissed and it took years before it was confirmed that Mendonsa and Friedman were the protagonists of such an iconic photograph.

In his book, the photographer describes how he took the picture after finding that Mendonsa was running down the street taking a girl who was crossing her. "I ran in front of him with my Leica on my shoulder, I did not really like the pictures I had," he wrote.

"Then, suddenly, in an instant, I saw someone catching something white.I turned around and clicked when the sailor kissed the nurse.If she had worn a dark dress, I would never have taken the picture. "

Friedman said years later that he did not know the existence of photography until more than a decade later, in 1960.

"It was not a big kiss," he admitted. "It was just someone who was celebrating – it was not a romantic act." Mendonsa had served in the Pacific and was on leave at home when the photo was taken.

But although Mendonsa's gesture was widely praised for being an expression of the joy that prevailed in the United States on the day of Japan's capitulation, critics have emerged in recent years.

Time magazine, for example, went on to say that it was "documentation of a public badual badault".

Source: BBC World