Shattering the myth of Jewish passivity, the last surviving partisans tell their stories of resistance in FOUR WINTERS, revealing a stunning narrative of heroism and resilience. “All I owned was a leopard coat, a rifle and a grenade in case of capture…the pillow was the rifle, the walls were the trees and the sky was the roof.” says partisan Faye Schulman, one of over 25,000 Jewish partisans, who fought back against the Nazis and their collaborators from deep within the forests of WWII’s Eastern Europe, Ukraine and Belarus. Against extraordinary odds, they escaped Nazi slaughter, transforming from young innocents raised in closely knit families to courageous resistance fighters.

New York Times Review: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/movies/four-winters-review.html

Ms Magazine Review: https://msmagazine.com/2022/09/06/four-winters-film-review-julia-mintz-jewish-womens-resistance-nazis-world-war-ii/

The post FOUR WINTERS, HOLOCAUST. MOVIE a revealing a stunning narrative of heroism and resilience by Jewish people appeared first on Good News!.

Times Square Event

Program Description

• The Spirit of ’45 Day event will be held on 42nd-43rd Broadway Plaza in Times

Square to officially kick off the countdown to the events and activities that

will be taking place next year to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of

World War II on August 14, 1945.

www.Spiritof45.org

• The event will feature live ‘40’s music* and commentary by WWII era seniors,

representatives of veterans and service organizations, and youth leadership

groups, and conclude with a wreath ceremony and a performance of “Taps.”

• The event will require a 50 chairs for speakers and invited guests, a podium,

and a 6 ft Seward Johnson sculpture depicting the famous “Times Square

Kiss” (a 26 ft version is was brought into Times Square on the 65th

anniversary of the end of WWII in 2010.

• The event will feature an intergenerational group of veterans from WWII to

the present day, and those who have supported them on the Home Front.

These will include Pat Little, the National Commander of the Military Order

of the Purple Heart, Harriett Thompson, a 91 year old cancer survivor, who

has achieved national attention as a marathon champion, and Dr. Bruce

Heilman, 88, a WWII Marine veteran who has served as Chancellor of the

University of Richmond for the past 30 years and recently drove his

motorcycle from Virginia to Alaska.

• Walgreens will show a video mosaic of the famous Kiss photograph made up

of hundreds of wedding photos provided by WWII era couples that will be

screened throughout the day, “congratulating the Greatest Generation on the

anniversary of their Greatest Day.”

• Similar media events will be taking place at the giant Seward Johnson statues

depicting the Times Square Kiss in Sarasota, Fl, and San Diego, Ca, and at the

smaller life sized statues that are at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, The

Landing in Branson, MO, and the USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor, HI.

• The press and the public are invited to attend the event.

The post Memorial Day Special – 70 Years Since WWII appeared first on Good News!.

A Hero’s Farewell and a Daughter’s Undying Love

Veterans Day , WWII Veterans , World War II , World War II Veterans , Poland World War II , War Veterans , Wwii , Impact News

I haven’t been able to write about my father’s passing until now, as it’s been such a gut-wrenching personal loss for me and for his beloved homeland. But I felt on this Veterans Day weekend it was important to honor my dad, as his sheer survival exemplifies what it truly means to be an American and reveals the unwavering determination the human spirit has to prevail in the most dire of circumstances.

As the embassy dignitaries solemnly approached me to officially present my father’s medal, my eyes immediately filled with tears. They caringly placed one of his country’s highest honors, a beautiful gold Maltese Cross enameled in white, into the palm of my shaking hand. It was a profound and overwhelming moment that was — literally — decades in the making.

I slowly walked over to my father’s oak casket and gently placed the medal onto the flag that draped his coffin and likewise commemorated his courage, my hand lingering a moment as if to touch his heart one last time. The color guard raised their sabers in a dramatic salute as a sign of respect for the historic moment: My father had finally earned the recognition he deserved for the heroism he had exemplified almost seventy years earlier when he had nearly died fighting for the freedom of his country.

The long journey to this moment had begun when my father had desperately crawled through the dark and corpse-filled sewers of Warsaw, and had continued in a brutal Nazi POW camp, where my father, Ryszard Kossobudzki, sold the suit off his back for a loaf of bread.

At just thirteen years of age, he saw the German planes invade and decimate his country in September of 1939. Life changed forever in Poland, but my father’s steadfast patriotism did not. Although he was offered a chance to sneak out across the border after the fighting began, he did not leave. Instead, he voluntarily chose to stay and fight in the Warsaw Uprising of World War II, knowing the heavy odds were that he would die for his country. More than eighty percent of his citizen unit, virtually unarmed soldiers, did.

Young Kossobudzki was known by his comrades only by a code name which, when translated, meant “Mountain Lion.” He had chosen that name to remind himself that he had to run fast and sneak by the Nazis. And, like a cat, he had many lives, narrowly cheating death over and over. He was shot at, torn up by grenade shrapnel, and chased by a dive bomber which obliterated the building he ran to. But eventually he was seriously injured by a mortar shell that killed his comrade who was standing just a few feet away. When he left Warsaw in October 1944, the once vibrant city was smoldering rubble, by some estimates, a staggering eighty-five percent destroyed.

The young freedom fighter was held at gunpoint by the Nazis as they threw his near lifeless and bloodstained body onto a boxcar headed toward a German POW camp. As every bump of the steam locomotive made him wince in pain, all that mattered to this stalwart resistance warrior was to make sure he and his buddies made it through the next hour or day. Amazingly, it was around this time that he was nominated by his Commander for the esteemed Fighter’s Cross, the equivalent of the American Silver Star (something I discovered just a few years ago while researching and writing Quiet Hero, the bestselling book about my father). Ultimately, a daring escape from the POW camp led him to the safety of U.S. troops, who met my father — now weighing a mere ninety pounds on his six foot frame — with cheers and hugs on a small German riverbed. It was young American GIs who saved my father and told him he was finally free.

My dad faced his final battle in life with the same courage, grace, and dignity that he had displayed as a teen. When he shared with me recently that he had cancer, my heart broke. Hearing the fear and pain in my voice, he said to me, “Don’t worry — in the Uprising, five German units couldn’t get me, I’ll fight this with everything I have, too.” And he did.

He had choked up when I told him the Polish Consulate had learned, through documents that were hidden during the war, that he had been nominated in 1944 for the prestigious Fighter’s Cross. He humbly said all he cared about at the time was “not to have a wooden cross,” meaning killed in battle. Like so many veterans, he didn’t seek awards or accolades, he only cared about protecting his country and survival. Despite his incredible humility, I privately began diligently working on getting him the acknowledgements he greatly deserved. I felt it would not only recognize my father, but all of the unsung heroes of WWII.

Knowing time was of the essence, I remained determined and made a trip to Poland to press forward on this important process for my dad. Appropriately, on Memorial Day weekend this year, a Polish embassy official and the Defense Attaché came to my father’s hospital bed in the ICU unit and formally presented him with a beautiful gold medal from the Defense Minister. As they pinned that medal and the Fighter’s Cross on my father’s hospital gown, even the critical care nurses and doctors who bore witness to emotional leavenings on a daily basis, were misty-eyed. To the sound of their applause, my father also officially became an officer, promoted from Corporal to Second Lieutenant. The uniformed general gave him a hearty salute. I was so thankful my dad was alive to see those great honors.

The road to my father’s past and back was an emotional journey for both my father and me after years of painful separation, but I was grateful that we shared the beautiful ending of his remarkable life. As one friend told me, “You made his last years, his best.” I think given what my father endured as a teenager thrust into WWII, the least I could do as a daughter was to make sure he was appreciated for his tremendous record of service and ultimately honored. I believe it is the least we can do for all of our veterans and their selfless contributions,

As my father took his last breaths, I promised him I would always remind people of the extraordinary sacrifice of his fearless young Polish comrades and the brave U.S. troops who saved him and — I believe — saved the world in WWII, and continue to do that time and time again. I also told him how much I loved him and would miss him.

As my father quietly slipped away, he was not only surrounded by accolades from America and his homeland, but by those who loved him dearly, holding his hand as the heroic Lieutenant Kossobudzki completed his last mission.

The post Rita Cosby – Emmy Winning Broadcaster shares her love for her Dad in her book. appeared first on Good News!.

Warren Hegg
National Supervisor
“Keep the Spirit of ’45 Alive
www.Spiritof45.org
Follow us on Facebook!
408.857.5252

-J Day in Times Square is a photograph by Alfred Eisenstaedt that portrays an American sailor kissing a woman in a white dress on Victory over Japan Day (V-J Day) in Times Square in New York City, on August 14, 1945.

The photograph, taken with a Leica IIIa camera, was published a week later in Life magazine among many photographs of celebrations around the United States that were presented in a twelve-page section titled Victory Celebrations.[1] A two-page spread faces three other kissing poses among celebrators in Washington, D.C., Kansas City, and Miamiopposite Eisenstaedt’s, which was given a full-page display. Kissing was a favorite pose encouraged by media photographers of service personnel during the war, but Eisenstaedt was photographing a spontaneous event that occurred in Times Square as the announcement of the end of the war on Japan was made by U.S. President Harry S. Truman at seven o’clock. Similar jubilation spread quickly with the news.

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Alfred Eisenstaedt signing his famous “V-J Day” photograph on the afternoon of August 23, 1995, while sitting in his Menemsha Inn cabin located on Martha’s Vineyard. He died shortly after midnight about 8 hours later.
The photograph is known under various titles, such as V-J Day in Times Square, V-Day, and The Kiss.[2][3]

The official United States celebration is not on this date, however. V-J Day is instead celebrated on September 2, the date of the formal signing of the surrender.[4] A special day of remembrance is marked in Japan and other countries on September 2.

Because Eisenstaedt was photographing rapidly changing events during the celebrations he did not have an opportunity to get the names and details. The photograph does not clearly show the faces of either person involved in this embrace and several people have claimed to be the subjects. The photograph was shot just south of 45th Street looking north from a location where Broadway and Seventh Avenue converge. Soon afterward, throngs of people crowded into the square and it became a sea of people.

Contents
[hide] · 1 Accounts by Alfred Eisenstaedt
· 2 Another photograph of the same scene
· 3 Identity of the kissers
· 4 The photograph in popular culture
· 5 See also
· 6 References
· 7 External links
Accounts by Alfred Eisenstaedt[edit] In two different books he wrote, Alfred Eisenstaedt gave two slightly different accounts of taking the photograph and of its nature.

From Eisenstaedt on Eisenstaedt:

In Times Square on V.J. Day I saw a sailor running along the street grabbing any and every girl in sight. Whether she was a grandmother, stout, thin, old, didn’t make a difference. I was running ahead of him with my Leica looking back over my shoulder but none of the pictures that were possible pleased me. Then suddenly, in a flash, I saw something white being grabbed. I turned around and clicked the moment the sailor kissed the nurse. If she had been dressed in a dark dress I would never have taken the picture. If the sailor had worn a white uniform, the same. I took exactly four pictures. It was done within a few seconds.
Only one is right, on account of the balance. In the others the emphasis is wrong — the sailor on the left side is either too small or too tall. People tell me that when I am in heaven they will remember this picture.
From The Eye of Eisenstaedt:

I was walking through the crowds on V-J Day, looking for pictures. I noticed a sailor coming my way. He was grabbing every female he could find and kissing them all — young girls and old ladies alike. Then I noticed the nurse, standing in that enormous crowd. I focused on her, and just as I’d hoped, the sailor came along, grabbed the nurse, and bent down to kiss her. Now if this girl hadn’t been a nurse, if she’d been dressed dark clothes, I wouldn’t have had a picture. The contrast between her white dress and the sailor’s dark uniform gives the photograph its extra impact.
It became a cultural icon overnight and by establishing his copyright, Eisenstaedt carefully controlled the rights to it, only allowing a limited number of reproductions which determined how it could be used.[citation needed]

Another photograph of the same scene[edit] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/99/Question_book-new.svg/50px-Question_book-new.svg.png
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2014)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Kissing_the_War_Goodbye.jpg/220px-Kissing_the_War_Goodbye.jpg
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Jorgensen’s similar photograph
U.S. Navy photo journalist Victor Jorgensen captured another view of the same scene, which was published in the New York Times the following day.[5] Jorgensen titled his photograph Kissing the War Goodbye. It shows less of Times Square in the background, lacking the characteristic view of the complex intersection so that the location needs to be identified, it is dark and shows few details of the main subjects, and it does not show the lower legs and feet of the subjects.

Unlike the Eisenstaedt photograph, which is protected by copyright, this Navy photograph is in the public domain as it was produced by a federal government employee on official duty. While the angle of the photograph may be less interesting than that of Eisenstaedt’s photo, it clearly shows the actual location of the iconic kiss occurring in the front of the Chemical Bank and Trust Building, with the Walgreens Pharmacy signage on the building façade visible in the background.

Identity of the kissers[edit] Edith Shain wrote to Eisenstaedt in the late 1970s claiming to be the woman in the picture.[6] In August 1945, Shain was working at Doctor’s Hospital in New York City as a nurse when she and a friend heard on the radio that World War II had ended. They went to Times Square where all the celebrating was and as soon as she arrived on the street from the subway, the sailor grabbed her in an embrace and kissed her. She related that at the time she thought she might as well let him kiss her since he fought for her in the war. Shain did not claim that she was the woman in the white dress until many years later when she wrote to Eisenstaedt. He notified the magazine that he had received her letter claiming to be the subject.[citation needed]

Since the identity of the woman had been claimed, in its August 1980 issue, the editors of Life asked that the kissing sailor come forward. In the October 1980 issue, the editors reported that eleven men and three women had come forward claiming to be the subjects of the photograph. Listed in the October 1980 issue as claiming to be the woman were Greta Friedman and Barbara Sokol as well as Edith Shain.[citation needed]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Edith_Shain.jpg/200px-Edith_Shain.jpg
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Edith Shain at the 2008 Memorial Day parade inWashington, D.C.
On June 20, 2010, Shain died at age 91, following a battle with liver cancer.[7] In April 2012 the issue of who the woman was remained as a new book on the topic was about to be released. The authors, George Galdorisi and Lawrence Verria, stated that Shain could not have been the woman because her height of just four feet ten inches was insufficient in comparison with the height of any of the men claiming to be the sailor.[8]

Those claiming to be the sailor were Donald Bonsack, John Edmonson, Wallace C. Fowler, Clarence “Bud” Harding, Walker Irving, James Kearney, Marvin Kingsburg, Arthur Leask, George Mendonça, Jack Russell, and Bill Swicegood.[9]

George Mendonça of Newport, Rhode Island, was identified by a team of volunteers from the Naval War College in August 2005 as “the kisser”. His claim was based on matching his scars and tattoos to scars and tattoos in the photograph.[6] They made their determination after much study including photographic analysis by the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who were able to match scars and tattoo spotted by photograph experts, and the testimony of Richard M. Benson, a photograph analysis expert, professor of photographic studies, plus the former Dean of the School of Arts at Yale University. Mr Benson has stated that, “It is therefore my opinion, based upon a reasonable degree of certainty, that George Mendonça is the sailor in Mr. Eisenstaedt’s famous photograph.”[6]

Mendonça, on leave from the USS The Sullivans (DD-537), was watching a movie with his future wife, Rita,[6] at Radio City Music Hall when the doors opened and people started screaming the war was over. George and Rita joined the partying on the street, but when they couldn’t get into the packed bars decided to walk down the street. It was then that George saw a woman in a white dress walk by and took her into his arms and kissed her, “I had quite a few drinks that day and I considered her one of the troops—she was a nurse.”[6] In one of the four pictures that Eisenstaedt took, Mendonça claims that Rita is visible in the background behind the kissing couple.[6]

In 1987, George Mendonça filed a lawsuit against Time Inc. in Rhode Island state court, alleging that he was the sailor in the photograph and that both Time and Lifehad violated his right of publicity by using the photograph without his permission. After Time Inc. removed the case to federal court, Mendonça survived a motion to dismiss.[10]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/66/George_Mendonca_and_Greta_Friedman.jpg/300px-George_Mendonca_and_Greta_Friedman.jpg
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George Mendonça and Greta Friedman, guests of honor at the Bristol, Rhode Island, July 4 parade in 2009
Although the issue of who the kissers were/are was no longer contended in a court of law, it continues to this day.

Life’s October 1980 issue did not include Glenn McDuffie or Carl Muscarello, who are described below.[11] These claims have been made much more recently.

Mendonça and Friedman (both individually and together), as well as Shain, Muscarello and McDuffie, were widely interviewed in the succeeding years by Life, PBS, NBC, CBS and others. The life stories of Mendonça and Friedman, and how they came to be in Times Square that day, as well as the reasons they are considered most likely to be the ones photographed, are the subject of a detailed book on the photo.[12] Mendonça recognizes Friedman to the exclusion of any other woman as the “nurse” he kissed in the photographs (or, to be precise, the woman in the white uniform, as Friedman was a dental assistant—a nurse’s uniform was customary in a dentist’s office to be worn by female assistants and hygienists in that era).[13]

Carl Muscarello is a retired police officer with the New York City Police Department, now living in Plantation, Florida. In 1995, he claimed to be the kissing sailor. He claimed that he was in Times Square on August 14, 1945, and that he kissed numerous women. A distinctive birthmark on his hand enabled his mother to identify him as the subject. Edith Shain initially said she believed Muscarello’s claim to be the sailor and even dated after their brief reunion. But in 2005, Shain was much less certain, telling the New York Times, “I can’t say he isn’t. I just can’t say he is. There is no way to tell.”[14] Muscarello has described his condition on August 14, 1945 as being quite drunk[15] and having no clear memory of his actions in the square, stating that his mother claimed he was the man after seeing the photograph and he came to believe it.[16]

Glenn McDuffie laid claim in 2007 and was supported by Houston Police Department forensic artist Lois Gibson.[17] Gibson’s forensic analysis compared the Eisenstaedt photographs with current-day photographs of McDuffie, analyzing key facial features identical on both sets. She measured his ears, facial bones, hairline, wrist, knuckles, and hand, and compared those to enlargements of Eisenstaedt’s picture.

“I could tell just in general that yes, it’s him,” said Gibson, a 25-year department veteran. “But I wanted to be able to tell other people so I replicated the pose.”[18] In the August 14, 2007 issue of AM New York McDuffie said he passed five polygraph tests confirming his claim to be the man.[19] He says that on that day he was on the subway to Brooklyn to visit his girlfriend, Ardith Bloomfield.[19] He came out of the subway at Times Square, where people were celebrating in the streets. Excited that his brother, who was being held by the Japanese as a prisoner of war, would be released, McDuffie began hollering and jumping up and down. A nurse saw him, and opened her arms to him. In apparent conflict with Eisenstaedt’s recollections of the event, McDuffie said he ran over to her and kissed her for a long time so that Eisenstaedt could take the photograph:

I went over there and kissed her and saw a man running at us…I thought it was a jealous husband or boyfriend coming to poke me in the eyes. I looked up and saw he was taking the picture and I kissed her as long as took for him to take it.[20] Gibson also analyzed photographs of other men who have claimed to be the sailor, including Muscarello and Mendonça, reporting that neither man’s facial bones or other features match those of the sailor in the photograph. On August 3, 2008, Glenn McDuffie was recognized for his 81st birthday as the “Kissing Sailor” during theseventh-inning stretch of the Houston Astros and New York Mets game at Minute Maid Park.[citation needed] McDuffie died on March 14, 2014.[21]

As part of a WW II memorial at Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts, a new painting titled “Victory Kiss” by Jim Laurier of New Hampshire was first unveiled on August 24, 2013 to honor the event captured in the photo. George Mendonça was in attendance for the unveiling, stating that just before he kissed the nurse, he had been in New York City’s Radio City Music Hall.[22]

The photograph in popular culture[edit] In 2005, John Seward Johnson II displayed a bronze life-size sculpture, Unconditional Surrender, at an August 14, 2005 sixtieth-anniversary reenactment at Times Square of the event made famous in Eisenstaedt’s photograph. His statue was featured in a ceremony that included Carl Muscarello and Edith Shain, holding a copy of the famous photograph, as participants.[23] Johnson also sculpted 25 feet (7.6 m)-tall versions in plastic and aluminum, which have been displayed in several cities, including San Diego (right) and Sarasota.[24][25][26]

In the 2009 film, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, a life-size blow-up of the photograph plays an important role when characters Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) and Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) escape pursuers by jumping into it and emerging in a monochrome 1945 Times Square, and losing a cell phone, which catches the attention of one of the background sailors, Joey Motorola, played by actor Jay Baruchel. Then Ben Stiller cut in on the sailor for a kiss with the nurse, played by actress Alberta Mayne before jumping out of the photo.[citation needed]

The picture is referenced – albeit showing a different camera – in the 2009 film Watchmen, which depicts alternate history versions of iconic moments in American history. During the opening credits, The Silhouette, a costumed heroine, kisses a female nurse.

In the 2010 film, Letters to Juliet, the Eisenstaedt photograph is featured in a scene where an editor of the New Yorker questions Sophie about her fact-checking (her job there) of the image as if it would be published in that magazine as a full-page feature. He questions her closely about whether the photograph was staged and most importantly whether it truly was “spontaneous and romantic.” Sophie gives him several pieces of information obtained from a sailor in the background of the photograph. She assures the editor that all of these facts were thoroughly checked and found to be correct, so he need have no concern.

The kiss was parodied in the The Simpsons episode, “Bart the General”. As celebrations ensue following victory for Bart in a battle against the school bully, a young boy dressed as a sailor kisses Lisa as a photograph is taken. After the photograph is taken, Lisa rebukes the boy, telling him to ‘knock it off’ and slapping him in the face.[citation needed]

In 2012, while performing a show for the Marines during the New York City Fleet Week, singer Katy Perry kissed a man on stage, replicating the pose.[27]

In the 2012 film Men in Black III, Will Smith views The Kiss occurring while time traveling after his fall from the skyscraper.

The post Most Famous Kissing Couple after World War II appeared first on Good News!.