Most papers carry the story of the 96 year old woman who confessed to the murder, 65 years ago, of a prominent architect. Why did she do it and why did she wait so long?

The murder of architect and prospective cabinet minister Felix Guljé (52) in 1946 shocked an already traumatised country. The Netherlands was chasing Nazi collaborators and bringing them to justice. Atie Ridder-Visser was a hero of the resistance and a member of an organised band of people meting out rough justice to collaborators. In 1946 she became part of the Politieke Opsporingsdienst, an organisation set up to track down Nazi collaborators and sympathisers. In 1946, she came for Felix Guljé.
‘I have a message for him’
Trouw takes up the story: ‘It’s March 1, 1946. Snow is falling. Accompanied by two colleagues of the Politieke Opsporingsdienst, the resistance fighter prepares to kill Guljé. She has been chosen to do it as she is the only one carrying a gun. Besides, it is her idea. The two men are on the lookout while she rings the bell at the Van Slingelandtlaan in Leiden. Mrs Guljé answers the door. Is your husband there? I have a message for him. Back in the living room Mrs Guljé hears a bang. Her husband is lying mortally wounded on the doorstep. He dies shortly afterwards in hospital.’
Incomplete information
What Ridder-Visser didn’t know was that Felix Guljé, far from being a Nazi sympathiser, was, like her, a member of the resistance. He offered shelter to Jews and held secret meetings at his house. He was also the director of the Hollandse Construction Werkplaatsen which employed members of the Dutch fascist party NSB and accepted commissions from the Germans. Disastrously, Ridder-Visser acted on the wrong or at least incomplete information.
Letter
Now, 65 years later, she has confessed to the murder in a letter to Leiden mayor Henri Lenferink. According to the letter, Ridder-Visser went abroad soon after the murder and stopped reading the newspapers. ‘All the commotion surrounding the murder seems to have passed her by’, Lenferink says in the Telegraaf. ‘She thought that the murder had long since been forgotten but did think it important to let the family know what happened. She only recently heard the real story about Guljé and all this time she had no idea she shot an innocent man.’
According to Trouw Guljé’s son Eugène was obsessed by his father’s murder and never stopped investigating. He went to his grave without knowing the truth. His remaining three children are ‘angry and upset’. Had Ridder-Visser tried to learn more about the man she was planning to kill ‘this murder would never have happened’ and ‘much grief would have been avoided’, they said.
Lenferink has handed over the letter to the public prosecutor’s office. There is no longer a case to answer after all these years but according to the Telegraaf the mayor still feels ‘this murder should be strongly condemned’. Some fellow resistance members are quoted as saying that ‘Karin’, Ridder-Vissers’ nom de guerre, is a ‘hypocrite’ for not having spoken out sooner.