Was that end-of-war kiss in Times Square unwanted?

First of two parts:

Greta Zimmer was at work as a dental assistant on Lexington Avenue in New York on Aug. 14, 1945, when she heard the Japanese had surrendered, and the war was over.

As soon as her bosses came back from lunch, she took off her nurse’s cap and walked to nearby Times Square to see if it was true.

Zimmer, 21, was an Austrian Jew whose parents in 1939 sent their daughters to safety, three to America and the fourth to then-Palestine. She didn’t know where her parents were or even if they were alive.

Times Square was filled with people shouting, hugging and kissing. She looked up at the electronic news crawls, which read, “V-J DAY, V-J DAY.”

Navy Quartermaster 1st Class George Mendonsa, 21, was home on leave and on a first date with 20-year-old Rita Petry at a matinee of “A Bell for Adano” at Radio City Music Hall when people outside pounded on the theater doors, shouting, “The war is over!”

Mendonsa and Petry spilled out into thousands of revelers. They made their way to Childs Restaurant, where the bartender lined up glasses and kept pouring, and then to Times Square.

Caught up in the excitement, emboldened by alcohol, Mendonsa grabbed a woman in a nurse’s uniform, swept her into his arms and kissed her. Just as suddenly, he let her go. Mendonsa and Petry headed for subway. He was flying back to his ship at midnight. Zimmer hurried back to her office to confirm the good news. Appointments were canceled for the rest of day to celebrate.

None of them knew they had been photographed and that the black-andwhite picture of the back-bending kiss would become one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, symbolizing the joyful end to years of war.

No one knew that, in later years, the moment would be reinterpreted as more forceful than friendly, glorifying what was really an unwanted sexual advance.

Friday: What the kiss meant later.