Wednesday 20 May, 2026

A tale of two kisses Robert Doisneau’s famous photograph of two carefree lovers outside the Hotel de Ville in Paris is 1950 must be one of the best-known images in the world. The picture, he later said, “represented a perfect fantasy. It encapsulates the world’s view of Paris as the city of love and freedom.” And now, another Parisian kiss, this time from May 14, 1941. It shows a woman saying goodbye to her husband, probably for good. That day, some 3,700 foreign-born Jews obeyed a summons by Paris police with a notice, printed on light green paper (it became known as the “green ticket roundup”), for what they believed would merely be a check of their immigration and identity papers. The operation was organized by a man named Theodor Dannecker, the envoy of Adolf Eichmann in Paris. A photographer with the Nazi propaganda unit in the city was on hand to observe. Source Note that the policemen in the picture overseeing proceedings are French gendarmes, not SS thugs. You can perhaps see…