1. Early life and education

2. V-J Day in Times Square

3. Later years and death

4. References

5. Further reading

Greta Zimmer Friedman (born Grete Zimmer; June 5, 1924 – September 8, 2016) was an Austrian-born American who was photographed being kissed by Navy sailor, George Mendonsa (1923-2019^[1]) in the iconic V-J Day in Times Square photograph of 1945 by Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt.^[2] Widely misattributed as being a photograph of a nurse, she was actually a dental assistant with a similar uniform.

Early life and education

She was born Grete Zimmer on June 5, 1924 to a Jewish family in Wiener Neustadt, Austria.^[3] At age 15, Zimmer emigrated to America from Nazi-controlled Austria in 1939 with her younger sisters Josefin (Fini) and Bella; as Americans, Josefin became Josephine (Jo), while Grete and Bella traded the last letter of each name to become Greta and Belle. The eldest Zimmer sister Lily emigrated to Palestine, took the name Tirza, and remained in Israel after fighting in the 1948 War of Independence. Their parents, Max and Ida, unable to leave Europe, died in concentration camps during the Holocaust.^[4]

Zimmer attended Queens Vocational High School, the Central High School of Needle Trades and the Harlem Evening High School. Supporting herself as a dental assistant, she then took classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and studied costuming with the New School of Social Research's Dramatic Workshop, led by Erwin Piscator. Later, while living in New York in the 1940s and 1950s, she variously worked in toy design and doll clothing, as well as early television with the Bil Baird puppets, and summer theater at the Camp Tamiment Playhouse.

V-J Day in Times Square

On VJ Day, August 14, 1945, Friedman had left work at the dentists' office dressed in her uniform and was celebrating the end of World War II in Times Square when a stranger dressed in a Navy sailor's uniform grabbed her and kissed her.^[2][6] Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, who was in Times Square documenting the celebration, captured the moment with his Leica. The resulting photograph, V-J Day in Times Square, was first published in Life magazine in 1945 with the caption, "In New York's Times Square a white-clad girl clutches her purse and skirt as an uninhibited sailor plants his lips squarely on hers".^[5]

When Eisenstaedt took the photo, he failed to get any personal information from his subjects leaving their identities unknown for decades. In the ensuing years, many women claimed to be the woman in the photo. Friedman eventually saw the photo again in the 1960s and instantly recognized herself. She wrote to Life magazine and provided additional photos to verify her identity.

While V-J Day in Times Square went on to become an iconic photo that was generally viewed

as a celebratory and romantic photograph, Friedman had mixed feelings about it.^[6] "I was grabbed by a sailor and it wasn't that much of a kiss, it was more of a jubilant act that he didn't have to go back, I found out later, he was so happy that he did not have to go back to the Pacific where they already had been through the war. And the reason he grabbed someone dressed like a nurse was that he just felt very grateful to nurses who took care of the wounded," Friedman stated in a 2005 interview with the Library of Congress.^[7] She went on to say, "I felt he was very strong, he was just holding me tight, and I'm not sure I -- about the kiss because, you know, it was just somebody really celebrating. But it wasn't a romantic event. It was just an event of thank God the war is over kind of thing," adding, "The guy just came over and kissed." ^[8] "I did not see him approaching, and before I know it I was in this tight grip," Friedman told CBS News in 2012.^[9]

Later years and death

In 1956, she married Dr. Mischa Friedman, a WWII veteran of the U.S. Army Air Corps and a scientific researcher for the Army at Fort Detrick, moving to Frederick, Maryland. She attended Hood College, studying oil painting, printing, sculpture, and watercolors, but did not graduate until 1981, the same year her two grown children Mara and Joshua also graduated from college. Friedman worked for ten years at Hood restoring books.^[10]

Friedman died at age 92 on September 8, 2016, in Richmond, Virginia. She is interred beside her husband, in Arlington National Cemetery.^[11]

References

Further reading

• {{cite web|url=http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.42863/transcript?ID=sr0001|title=Interview Notes|date=August 23, 2005|publisher=LOC|series=American Folklife Center|first=Patricia|last=Redmond}}
• Sulzgruber, Werner, Lebenslinien. Jüdische Familien und ihre Schicksale. Eine biografische Reise in die Vergangenheit von Wiener Neustadt. Berger, Wien / Horn 2013, {{ISBN|978-3-85028-557-5}}. [biographies of Jewish families from Wiener Neustadt, Austria, incl. a chapter about family Zimmer]
• Verria, Lawrence, and Galdorisi, George. The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo That Ended World War II. Naval Institute Press, May 15, 2012, {{ISBN|1612510787}}.

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