OOmis, Though I think that indeed in this case the line of halachic determination is clear, and the posters you are discussing this with are quite knowledgeable on this issue, please do not feel you have to have a sha shtil mentality as some have suggested when there is a halachic discussion going on. You have a keen logical mind, as is clear from your insightful posts, and I understand what you are saying. Few of us are so perfect in our observance that we will never let feelings, or considerations like wanting our child to live rather than be killed, take priority in our choices. Not everyone is a Chana with her 7 sons, capable of dealing with such nisyonos like her.
Hundreds if not thousands of frum, chareidi parents, talmidei chachomim among them, Rabbis among them, found ways to save their children during the Shoah by getting them into convents and Catholic orphanages. That’s a yehareg v’al yaavor, and yet it was done, and lives were saved, and illuim and rabonim grew up from these kids.
Will you say they were wrong? Could I say they were wrong? Well, I don’t have the chutzpah to presume I know what is right in that situation. Maybe others do. Not me.
You won’t find any of the talmidei chachomim here – and they are talmidei chachomim, without question – considering this historical tidbit. Why? It’s outside the parsha of the beis medresh, and thus it isn’t right to let facts get in the way of a good and righteous svoro. That is where halocho, even halocho lemaaseh, intersects with realities that perhaps weren’t contemplated. Who knows how the individual will act, and who can say with confidence that they would follow the apparent halocho in such a situation? And yet you I think will understand very well how people might think in such a situation, so keep providing your wisdom.