George Mendonsa, "kissing a sailor", dies at the age of 95

Copyright of the image
AFP

The photographed American sailor kissing a stranger in Times Square in New York to celebrate the end of the Second World War died at the age of 95.

The photo of George Mendonsa leaning over and kissing Greta Zimmer Friedman, 21, the day of victory over Japan, has become one of the most enduring images of this period.

This was one of four photographs taken by Alfred Eisenstadt as a summary of celebratory images for Life magazine.

Ms. Friedman passed away in 2016 at the age of 92.

Mr. Mendonsa's daughter, Sharon Molleur, said her father had an epileptic seizure and died Sunday as a result of a fall in a retirement home in Middleton, Rhode Island.

Alfred Eisenstadt did not give the names of the strangers who kissed and it was years before Mr Mendonsa and Ms Friedman were confirmed as a couple introduced.

The photographer recounted how he had seen the sailor running in the street on August 14, 1945, gripping a girl in sight.

"I was running in front of him with my Leica looking at me over my shoulder, but none of the pictures I could have liked," he wrote in the book Eisenstadt on Eisenstadt.

"Then suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white get caught." I turned around and clicked when the sailor kissed the nurse. had been wearing a dark dress, I would never have taken the picture. "

Ms. Friedman, who was working as a dental assistant, said she was not aware of the photo until the 1960s.

"It was not really a kiss," she remembered later. "It was just someone who was celebrating, it was not a romantic event."

Mr. Mendonsa had served in the Pacific and was on leave at the time the photo was taken.

However, not everyone sees the photo as an event to celebrate. While this has been widely praised as an expression of the joy felt in the United States on the day of Japan's surrender, some have recently considered it, as Time Magazine wrote, "like little more than the documentation". of a very public sexual assault ".