Was this murder?

[biglinmarshall]

I'm going to ask members how they feel about the following situation.

As a 5-year-old boy, my uncle Jaime was rescued from Auschwitz where his parents, brother and sister were murdered. He was smuggled to safety across Europe and taken to Andorra.

During the course of his journey, his protectors killed two Germans and a Vichy French policeman, all of whom would have betrayed him to his death.

My question is this:

Was what they did murder?

Self-defence?

Justifiable homicide?

[happyhaddock]

There is a defense of necessity for most crimes. This was a case of that.

Or, as Bette Midler says, "F*ck 'em if they can't take a joke"!

[pjpete]

Well, I don't think it was the right thing to do, unless of course they were trying to physically harm anyone. Why didn't they just keep going to their freedom site and go on about their lives?

[biglinmarshall]

Dear Pipete

Do you know anything about the Holocaust? Do you realise that as well as millions of Jews, 800,000 Romani (gypsies) were murdered by the Nazis because of their race?

My uncle had his parents, brother and sister murdered in Auschwitz.

Does that give you enough of a motive for what I consider self-defence?