Similarities between the Hunger Games and Holocaust
The book Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins can be considered to be an analogy to the infamous genocide - The Holocaust. The Hunger Games are an "entertainment" tool for the Capitol (the fictional country of Panem's government), and a device used as a punishment to the work-force population mainly inhabiting the 12 Districts of Panem, reminding all of the people of the grand rebellion that all Districts some time ago led against the Capitol, and lost the fight, resulting in the lost of District 13 and the Hunger Games. The Capitol doesn't only referr to a group of several people, but it also referrs to the population of "chosen" people living in the center of the country in luxurious conditions having the inhabitants of the 12 districts toil for them. The title of the country, Panem, referrs to the Latin phrase Panem et circenses which means "bread and circus". It means that the government of Panem used "entertainment" to distract the public's attention from more important matters. Of course, the "entertainment" are the Hunger Games. If poor people (like from the Seam - the poorest section of District 12) are too busy trying to survive from day to day, their only real-life opponent are the rich people living in the district - the enforcers (mayors, guards, etc.) The country of Panem distracts attention from the luxurious life of the Capitol by setting the people on to each other and keeping the districts separate so they could not unite and pose a realistic threat. During the genocide of the Holocaust, the main goal of the Nazis was to create a pure Aryan race, to make all the "undesirables" (Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, handicapped, Poles, Soviets) move away and not interfere with their lives. The Capitol can be compared to the potential "Aryan" race that has been purified already - the stage to which the Nazis never got. The Districts can be referred to as labor camps or ghettos, used to gather the work-force and keep in unsanitory conditions to work at the cheapest expense for the benefit of the capitol. A known fact is that during the Holocaust the Nazis made various camps, and there was absolutely no correlation between them - just like between the districts. At the camps, along with the prisoners lived the enforcers - the Nazi officers supervising the work and not hesitating to whip or punish if necessary. In the Districts along with the working force live the mayors and guards, which are appointed to the post relatively rich people. In District 11 (Rue's District) people toiled in the orchards all day, and when Martin (a not fully mentally stable person with the mind of a 3-year-old) stole a pair of night vision glasses just to play with, he was shot. Just like Jews who tried to smuggle some food off of what they were harvesting, they were whipped (because the Nazis were in need of a lot of workers), or shot. Another perspective of the role of Tributes in this analogy, is that the tributes could potentially represent the German people forced to kill other German people just because the latter are Jews. However, just like during the Holocaust, some of the people refuse to be toys in the hands of the Gamemakers. For example, Peeta and Katniss tricked the Capitol into letting them both be alive by faking a suicide that would conclude to an unwanted result - no winner. This defiance Katniss has yet to pay for. During the Holocaust, many Germans resisted within Germany, helped out people in ghettos, hid people in their homes, etc. Miep Gies hid Anne Frank and her family.
Differences between the Hunger Games and Holocaust
As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the Hunger Games can be considered to be an analogy to the infamous genocide - the Holocaust. However, there is only one significant difference. The book is set in a dystopian society, in the future, with the separation of people having already occured. This was the society Hitler was aiming for, of course counting himself among the people of the Capitol. However, he never bothered to put himself into the shoes of others, the 6 million Jews he killed. On paper, the idea of a "chosen" Aryan race was perfect, but only for prospering Germans. In action however, the Final Solution was an extremist action, an act of vengeance on the people who just did not want to move out of homes in which generations of their ancestors have lived peacefully. The book Hunger Games I believe represents Germany (or, potentially the world) of what it would be like had Hitler succeeded and no one had stopped him. As the book demonstrates, the results would have been disastrous. One of the minor differences between the Hunger Games and the Holocaust is scientific experimentation. During the Holocaust, the Nazis used their victims (Jews, especially handicapped and twins) as lab rats in their crazy, torturous experiments. In the Hunger Games however, surgical alteration was an item of luxury, available only for the Capitol. Another minor difference was that in the Hunger Games people who live average, don't complain about life - simple because they have never known something better being that the autocratic rule of the Capitol goes way back than any of the people's ancestors can remember. Other people who are at the point of dying from starvation (like Katniss' family after her father's death) are worried about getting food, and don't know who to blame, because the true perpetrators are far away in an unknown place called the Capitol.