Who was the woman kissed in Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous V-J Day photograph?

Greta Zimmer Friedman was the woman kissed in Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous V-J Day photograph.

Friedman was a dental assistant who was in Times Square when crowds celebrated the announcement of Japan’s surrender in August 1945. She later explained that she did not know the sailor and that the kiss was spontaneous. Her identification helped resolve one half of the long-running debate over the photograph’s subjects.

The sailor has been claimed by several men, including George Mendonsa, but the image does not provide enough evidence for universal agreement. The photograph’s title refers to V-J Day, although the formal surrender ceremony did not take place until September 2 aboard USS Missouri.

The picture was taken by Life photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt and published a week later. A separate Navy photograph by Victor Jorgensen shows a similar kiss from another angle. That second image is sometimes mistaken for Eisenstaedt’s photograph and involves different visual framing.