Trauma art#3Police violence

Trauma art [archive #3] 3 of 10

Extended background of the series trauma art on police violence

Is "Nie Wieder" a universal promise for humanity, or is it only true for those with the right lobby behind them?

And, do those who tolerate the Nazi language of the perpetrators against the one, betray the victims of yesterday?

This section serves as forensic evidence of systemic betrayal. These works document specific acts of police brutality and police sexual violence perpetrated in 1986 (police station Zwolle, Overijssel, January 22th- 30th) within the isolation of a police cell—a period when the state operated in a self-proclaimed 'state of war' against those it chose to dehumanize. The mid-eighties remain one of the most violent post-war eras in Dutch policing history.

This violence was fueled by antisemitic rhetoric (exactly in comparison with the holocaust), the language of persecution, drawing direct parallels to historical 'enemy groups' to justify torture, dehumanization, and extreme sexual degradation against certain groups or individuals. Against those intentionally left without representation or protection by the government in society: the traumatized, psychiatric patients, the non-normative, and especially in the eighties the non - LGBTQ+ individuals with non- conform (sexual and gender) identities, excluded from the protection by inclusive laws. Police officers projected their cis hetero- sexuality upon those they contempt with great violence- in my case with lasting injury.

The aggression was also specifically weaponized against former state-care children, who were dismissed by the authorities as 'the refuse of society.' This archive exposes not only the physical and sexual violence within the cell but also the complicity of official Dutch institutions that claim to combat (antisemitic) hatred, yet remained complete silent when that same hatred was turned against the marginalized. The violence is documented after 31 years by formal confidential letters from Nationale Ombudsman, Dutch Police and from medical records 2004-2025.

In this vacuum of justice, where no psychological support or institutional accountability exists, -these works stand as the first visual testimonies of a survivor - created between 2014 and 2025. Even without having a criminal record, in mental health care institutional violence is a taboo subject - so they are only the beginning of processing without any support.

Notes: The texts in the images depicted at this page is- of course- not my viewpoint, but is the language and perspective of the (many) police officers in Zwolle, January 1986. Official organizations fighting antisemitism did not respond to the reporting of this language.