The Wall Breakers

Rare Photos of Couples Sharing Their Last Kiss Before Wartime Departure at Penn Station, NY in 1943

I must confess these photos, courtesy of the Life Archives, shot at Penn Station in New York in 1943 really hit me. Keep in mind, at least a good number of these couples never saw each other again after this very moment. It's a heartbreaking thought, to be ripped away from your love in the prime of your life to go fight in a war in another country. In these last moments you can see how photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt did a great job capturing the emotion of each couple. They are the only people in focus in each photograph. Each couple's final kiss is trapped in time, which was almost certainly the deepest desire each of these people wished could come true at the time. For most of these men, death and destruction, the likes of which they and myself could never fathom, loomed ahead. For many of these women, the heartache of wartime loneliness, like a coiled spring ready to snap at any moment, would be all they could look forward to. For some of these people, this is their last and everlasting moment, and that should be remembered. For others though, this wasn't goodbye, only so long for now, as reunion, marriage, and an unbridled joy that probably felt more like a dream that would never come true, would be in their futures. These men and women are heros. Take a look at these moving photographs below.

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