The Fight to the Death

I have decided to read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins since I've heard so many good reviews about the book. In it, the main character Katniss has just volunteered to take her sister Prim's place in the so called hunger games. Each year the hunger games take place in the country of Panem in which one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts must participate in the event. This is how the games came into place:

"Just as the clock strikes two, the mayor steps up to the podium and begins to read. It's the same story every year. He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games."

Basically, the competetors, called tributes, chosen unwillingly must fight to the death while they try to defeat various situations such as " a burning desert to a frozen wasteland." As I've been reading this, I can't imagine what it would be like to live in this country. The fear the children face before the tributes are announced must be unbearable. Even to have an event like this in one's country so the people do not forget about what had happened in the past is crazy to me. I feel like this could be similar to having mock holocausts every year so we wouldn't forget about the one in the past. Clearly it's not logical. I can't even imagine what it would be like to go through it...