Greta Zimmer Friedman

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On the day of the victory over Japan in 1945, Greta Zimmer was grabbed and kissed in Times Square by an unknown soldier.
Photo: Victor Jorgensen

Greta Zimmer Friedman born as Margarete Zimmer ( June 5, 1924 in Wiener Neustadt  -  September 8, 2016 in Richmond , Virginia ) was an Austrian- born American designer, visual artist and restaurateur. She was kissed by a seaman at the end of the war on August 14, 1945 in New York's Times Square and is very likely to be seen in the world-famous photographs by Alfred Eisenstaedt and Victor Jorgensen .

Life

Grete Zimmer, 1939

Margarete Zimmer comes from a Jewish family in Wiener Neustadt . She was one of four daughters of Max and Ida Zimmer and was called Gretl , Grete or Greta . Her father ran a men's clothing store at Neunkirchner Strasse 34 until 1938. The family was known, among other things, for their social commitment.

Grete Zimmer emigrated to the USA with two of her sisters in 1939 at the age of 15 . It was one of the last opportunities to leave the National Socialists' domain . Her parents stayed behind, were robbed of their property by the Nazi regime , driven from their hometown and finally murdered in the Majdanek concentration camp during the Holocaust .

Zimmer trained in costume design at the Central Needle Trades School , later the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York City, and after graduating there worked for a time as a dental assistant in Manhattan . On August 14, 1945, the day of Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II , she took part in the victory celebrations in Times Square. This is where the world-famous photos were taken. She later worked in the toy industry, designing doll clothes.

In 1956 she married Mischa Elliot Friedman. The couple moved to Frederick , Maryland and had two children. She began studying art, which she didn't graduate until 1981 - the same year that her two children graduated. Then she worked as a freelance artist. Most recently she was a book restorer at Hood College in Frederick for ten years .

Greta Zimmer Friedman died on September 8, 2016 at the age of 92 in a retirement home in Richmond, Virginia . She was buried next to her husband in Arlington National Cemetery , United States' Honor Cemetery.

The photo

Das Originalbild von Alfred Eisenstaedt ist in der englischsprachigen Wikipedia unter V-J Day in Times Square zu sehen.
Es darf aus urheberrechtlichen Gründen nicht hier eingebunden werden.

Alfred Eisenstaedt's photo VJ Day in Times Square first appeared in Life magazine in 1945 and is also called The Kiss . It is one of the two images that shaped the collective perception of the US Pacific War after World War II. While Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima by Joe Rosenthal symbolized the struggle of the US soldiers, VJ Day in Times Square by Eisenstaedt became a symbol of the joy and relief of a nation at the end of the war.

On the day of Japan's unconditional surrender in World War II, Greta Zimmer went to Times Square in her white work smock, where an unknown seaman grabbed and kissed her. It was George Mendonsa of Newport , Rhode Island , who was on vacation in New York. A few months earlier he had witnessed the Japanese attack on the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill , and saw nurses there taking care of the wounded. As he celebrated the end of the war in Times Square, Greta Zimmer's white coat reminded him of those nurses. That was the trigger why he kissed her. They only found out years later that they had been photographed in this scene by two well-known photographers.

In the book The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II , published in 2012, authors Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi conclude that Zimmer Friedmann and Mendonsa are the people depicted in the photograph.

The photograph was the model for the sculpture Unconditional Surrender ( Unconditional Surrender ) by John Seward Johnson II.

Since 2005, an event has been held annually in Times Square on the anniversary of the picture's taking, in which couples, sometimes in appropriate disguise, recreate the scene of the picture.

In the 21st century, the depicted scene is seen as sexual assault , and therefore understood as an expression of the rape culture .

Zimmer Friedman's attitude to events

"It wasn't my decision to be kissed," she said in a 2005 interview for the Veterans History Project at the US Library of Congress . “The guy just came over and grabbed me! This man was very strong. I didn't kiss him, he kissed me. ”“ It was less of a kiss than jubilee that he didn't have to go back [to the war]. ”Her son later reported that his mother had always been appreciative of feminist positions and I agreed that it was sexual assault. But she never assumed that Mendonsa had any bad intentions.

literature

  • Ian Jeffrey: The Photo Book. Phaidon, London 2000, ISBN 0-7148-3937-X , p. 134
  • Robert Hariman, John Louis Lucaites: The Times Square Kiss: Iconic Photography and Civic Renewal in US Public Culture. In: Journal of American History. 94/2007. Organization of American Historians, pp. 122-132, ISSN  0021-8723
  • Lawrence Verria, George Galdorisi: The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo That Ended World War II , Naval Institute Press 2012
  • Jens Amschlinger, Lukas Flad, Jessica Sautter: "I saw something white being grabbed". Sexual violence in VJ Day in Times Square . In: Image, magazine for interdisciplinary science, issue 25, January 2015, pp. 2-50 (PDF; 1.88 MB)

Web links

Commons : Greta Zimmer Friedman  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ EliRosenberg: Greta Friedman, Who Claimed to Be the Nurse in a Famous VJ Day Photo, This at 92. In: The New York Times . September 10, 2016, accessed November 29, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b Austria Press Agency / Anastasia Lopez: Austrian woman from the famous Siegerkuss photo is dead , referring to a broadcast by Werner Sulzgruber (Learning and Memorial Site Jüdischer Friedhof Wiener Neustadt), ORF (Ö3), without date, accessed on 29. November 2016.
  3. ^ The true story behind the iconic VJ Day sailor and 'nurse' smooch , New York Post ; accessed on September 14, 2016
  4. ↑ a b c d Patricia Redmond: Interview with Greta Zimmer Friedman , Interview Transcript, August 23, 2005. In: Veterans History Project, Library of Congress
  5. ↑ Greta Zimmer Friedman dies; kissed sailor in World War II iconic photo. The Washington Times , accessed September 14, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Elizabeth Chuck, Erin Calabrese: Greta Zimmer Friedman, 'Nurse' in Iconic WWII Kissing Photo, Dies at 92. NBC News, September 10, 2016, accessed September 16, 2016 .
  7. ↑ Patrick Boyd: WWII exhibit features classic pictures , Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, July 6, 2012, accessed on November 29, 2016 (English)
  8. ↑ Emily Langer: Greta Friedman, captured in a kiss (maybe) in iconic WWII photograph, dies at 92 . In: The Washington Post , September 12, 2016, accessed June 9, 2019;
    Lawrence Verria, George Galdorisi: The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II . Naval Institute Press , Annapolis, MD 2012, ISBN 1-61251-078-7 (English).
  9. ↑ Jens Amschlinger, Lukas Flad, Jessica Sautter: "I saw something white being grabbed". Sexual violence in VJ Day in Times Square . In: Image, magazine for interdisciplinary science, issue 25, January 2015, pp. 2-50 (PDF; 1.88 MB)
  10. ↑ Andy Martino: How a celebrated image marking VJ Day in Times Square has taken on a sinister shade. New York Daily News, September 2, 2016, accessed September 12, 2016 .
  11. ↑ Andy Martino: Greta Zimmer Friedman, nurse in iconic Times Square sailor-kiss photo, dead at 92 . In: New York Daily News, September 10, 2016, accessed June 9, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Friedman's room, Greta
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zimmer, Margarete (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian emigrant from the Third Reich, photo icon
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiener Neustadt
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 2016
Place of death Richmond , Virginia