Would Jews Have Been Saved the Holocaust by Settling Israel?

About 3 or 4 times Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveichik hints in his “Five Addresses” (mentioned here), and once says forthrightly, that had the Jews ascended to Israel, they would have escaped the destruction of the Holoucaust, a topic we discussed here elsewhere.

The quote is in Lecture 4:2:

Our movement [Mizrachi] appeared as a saviour and redeemer of a mitzvah which was, to borrow an expression from the Mussar literature, “an orphaned mitzvah” [the mitzvah to settle in Eretz Yisrael]… If Jews had fulfilled this mitzvah in full measure and in proper time, hundreds of thousands of Jews would have been saved during the years of the holocaust. Our movement was perhaps the only one that demanded, night and day, of Jews to go up to Eretz Yisrael; and even today our movement demands of religious Jews to go up to Israel.

(By the way, do Rabbi Soloveichik’s students heed this demand? Or do they all claim they have great excuses, just like their master?)