A woman from the legendary photo where a sailor kisses a girl in Times Square has died

The woman who became the main character of one of the most famous photographs of the XX century has died at the age of 92. According to her family, Greta Friedman passed away in a nursing home in Virginia. Maybe her name is not so well known, but everyone has seen and knows the photo of a sailor kissing a girl in the middle of Times Square, marking the end of World War II.

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Source: Daily Mail

Greta will be buried next to her late husband Misha Friedman, who died in 1998, at the Arlington Cemetery. She is survived by two children — Joshua and Mara, two grandchildren and many other relatives.

It took several decades for Greta Friedman and George Mendoza, a retired sailor, to be identified as a couple kissing in a famous picture taken by photographer Alfred Eisenstadt on August 14, 1945 for LIFE magazine. George Mendoza is now 93, he lives in Rhode Island.

Greta Friedman's son Joshua said that his mother and George Mendoza became more and more friends with age, although at the time of the photo the sailor kissed Greta completely unexpectedly. "Mom has always appreciated the feminist point of view and adhered to the postulate that no one has the right to invade the intimate space of a stranger on the street. But at that moment she didn't see any evil intentions on George's part." According to him, George and Greta met again in the 1980s and since then they have been constantly communicating and sending each other Christmas cards.

Pictured is George Mendoza. There have been many people in history who claimed that the famous photo depicts a real couple in love. Nevertheless, in 2012 the book The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II ("The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery of the photo that marked the end of World War II") was published, which confirmed that Friedman and Mendoza are the same girl and guy from the photo.