V-J Day in Times Square. August 14, 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt shot one of the most iconic photographs of the twentieth century in Times Square, where crowds were gathering to watch the electric news ticker for an anticipated announcement by U.S. President Harry S. Truman about the end of the war with Japan (marking the end of World War II). The sailor in the photo has been identified as George Mendonsa. The woman in the nursing uniform is believed to be Greta Zimmer Friedman, a Jewish dental hygienist on her lunch break. She escaped from Nazi Germany in the 1930s, but her parents were killed in Auschwitz.
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Credits
Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 9.
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