ing to its cultural and educational institutions as well as to being an administrative capital. The town’s situation turned worse after the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, after which it became a border town and lost most of its previous territory.
This was also the place where the poet Mihály Babits spent his summers from 1924 to his death in 1941. The poet's residence was one of the centers of the country's literary life; he had a significant effect on intellectual life in Esztergom.
Esztergom had one of the oldest Jewish communities in Hungary. They had a place of worship here by 1050. King Charles I (Caroberto) gifted a plot to the community for a cemetery in 1326.
According to the 1910 census, 5.1% of the population was Jewish. The 1941 census found 1510 Jews here. The community maintained an elementary school until 1944. Jewish shops were ordered to be closed on April 28, 1944; the short-lived ghetto was set up on May 11. The former Jewish shops were handed over to non-Jews on June 9. The inmates of the ghetto were sent to Komárom in early June, and then deported to Auschwitz on June 16, 1944. Two forced labor units, whose members were mainly Esztergom Jews, were executed en masse near Ágfalva, on the Austrian border in January, 1945.
Soviet troops captured the town on December 26, 1944, but were pushed back by the Germans on January 6, 1945, who was finally ousted on March 21, 1945.
The Magyar Suzuki Corporation plant opened in 1992, and is now the biggest employer in the city.
The Mária Valéria bridge, connecting Esztergom with the city of Štúrovo in Slovakia was rebuilt in 2001 with the support of the European Union. Originally it was inaugurated in 1895, but the retreating German troops destroyed it in 1944. A new thermal and wellness spa opened in November, 2005
