In 1701, the fortifications of the town were blown up, according to the decree of Emperor Leopold. Later, the stones of the fortress were used for construction, so today there is hardly any trace of it above the surface. During World War II, May 9, 1944, Germans kept 3,000 Jews from the town and the surrounding villages imprisoned in a ghetto. They were all sent to Auschwitz concentration camp on June 11 and 14, 1944. Balassagyarmat was captured on 9 December 1944 by Soviet troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front in the course of the Budapest Offensive. In 1973, two young men (17 and 19), the sons of the local secretary of the state-party, broke into the city’s girls’ dormitory and took hostage 20 girls. They demanded a bus to cross the border into Austria. They stayed there for five days without any food or drink before being taken down. The older brother was shot by three snipers with special bullets on the fifth day from outside the building. The younger brother was captured and sentenced to 15 years in prison, and his four friends, who had heard about their plans before they committed the crime, were sentenced to four years each in prison. None of the girls was injured physically except one, who broke her arm when she tried to escape by jumping out of the window of the dormitory on the second day. Afterwards, they were instructed not to publicly talk about the case. Csenge Hatala, a young writer, started collecting documents and conducting interviews with the victims forty years later. This was the first hostage situation in the modern history of Hungary. The unqualified police and military force found themselves in a situation they had no experience of. In communist Hungary, serious crimes were not only awkward, but actually harmful to the Party and its leaders. The city authorities tried to hide the details and smother the case, but it triggered a huge wave of indignation in the city and throughout the country as a whole. Geography The town lies on the left bank of the Ipoly river, which marks the state border with Slovakia. Demographics In 2001 Balassagyarmat had 18,474 inhabitants. The population were Hungarian 98%, Romani 2%. 100% of the total population speak Hungarian as their mother tongue. Notable people Balassi (Balassa) family (means "from Balassa") Bálint Balassi (aka Balassa) (1554, Zólyom - 1594) Josef