The Prostitute Amsterdam Killed Twice
Betty Died 15 Years Ago, But Amsterdam Still Makes Her Work
When I first read about Betty Szabo’s hologram, I felt an unsettling shiver. Not from the morbid aspect of the initiative — after all, what other word could describe the digital recreation of a murdered woman? — but from how this story exposes our own contradictions as a society.
We can digitally recreate a dead sex worker, but we couldn’t protect her when she was alive. This is the first irony that jumps out at me, and it’s brutal in its simplicity.
Picture this: Betty will reappear at the same location where she was brutally murdered, but this time as a three-dimensional projection, a technological ghost asking passersby for help.
The same society that marginalized her profession, that pushed her to the edges of “respectability,” now wants to use her post-mortem image to serve justice. There’s something deeply disturbing about this posthumous instrumentalization of her existence.
Don’t get me wrong. I support any initiative that might bring justice and closure to Betty’s family.
But I can’t help but question: where was all this concern when she was still breathing?
When, at 19, she worked until the final days of her pregnancy?
