Dusiat is located on the banks of the River Sventoji near lakes Sartai, Sventoji and Dusetas, whence the name. Forests and pleasant scenery surround the shtetl. The neighboring towns include Antaliept (10 km.), Salok (26 km.), Ezerenai (36 km.), Utian (36 km.) and Rakishok (38 km.). Since the shtetl is situated at a distance from the railroad, connections with nearby towns are by road or dusty paths. There are three streets of wooden houses, at one end a Catholic Church whose tall towers overlook the entire shtetl.
Records of the shtetl date as far back as 1530. Already then, free artisans and merchants resided in the shtetl and there was an existing Jewish community. The land belonged to the Platter estate. In those days the shtetl was famous for being one of the strongholds of Polish resistance against the Russian regime.
In 1905 there were outbreaks of Czarist style pogroms in the shtetl (see Voskhod April 23, 1905 - Jewish newspaper in Russian). The Jewish-owned stores were looted and much property was destroyed. Torah books were desecrated and torn apart. A small group of Jews fortified themselves in one of the houses and threw stones at the rioters. One of the Jews, Yitzchak Barron, was brutally murdered while three others were badly injured.
That same year, and again in 1910, large fires broke out in the shtetl. In 1910 half of the Jewish homes and stores were burned down, along with the old synagogue.
The Jewish community: In 1847 there were 486 members of the Jewish community and by 1897 the numbers had risen to 1158 (89% of the population). After the fire of 1910, the Jewish community diminished and by the time the shtetl was restored in 1912, there were only 704 Jews left, about 250 families (70%).
The thirty stores in the shtetl all belonged to Jews. A number of Jews worked as farmers on leased land. The remainder were merchants, peddlers and artisans. The bulk of trading was with Dvinsk (via Ezerenai).
Market day was Wednesday, in addition to which there were two annual fairs.
During World War I, Jews did not leave Dusiat, but later on many did move from the shtetl to larger towns. After the war (in 1921) there were only approximately one hundred Jewish families in the shtetl, and by the eve of the Holocaust only eighty families remained.
The decline of the shtetl was both the result of being cut off from Dvinsk following the demarcation of new borders, and the anti-Semitic incitement by the local Verslininkai [members of the ultranationalist grouping Verslas, slogan “Lithuania for the Lithuanians”] who were against the “foreign” merchants and artisans. The Jews who remained in the shtetl made a living from peddling, trading and manual labor. There were thirty-two Jewish artisans in the shtetl (among them eight tailors, five butchers, five shoemakers, four smiths, two bakers and others). There were also a number of farmers, two flourmills, a power station and a candy factory owned by Jews. The Jewish Folksbank (National Bank) was founded in November 1924.
Owing to the difficult economic conditions, many Jews were forced to immigrate to Southern Africa, the United States, and even to Eretz Yisrael.
Before WWI, there were five to six Cheders and one Cheder Metukan (progressive) in Dusiat. During Lithuanian independence, there was a Tarbut (culture) elementary school whose principal was Hillel Schwartz and teachers were Yehuda Slep and Leib Gordon. There were 65 students in the school, ten children in the Cheder. Hebrew evening classes were held in the school, there was a library and a drama class. The branch of Hashomer Hatzair had eighty members while the Maccabi association numbered fifty. There was also a society for Torah studies, and Linat Hazedek and Gemach charity groups.
Among the rabbis in the shtetl was Rabbi Menachem Mendel from Lublin who taught Torah in the Zamut communities, Dusiat and Ponevez. He wrote the book Tamim Yachdav. Rabbi Nathan-Neta and his son Rabbi Bunim-Tzemach Silver were both born in Dusiat. The last Rabbi was Rabbi Tuvia-Dov Schlesinger (הי”ד[2]). The writer and poet Mordechai Yoffe, and Dov Garber, who conducted the choir in the synagogue of Dusiat and then in the Choral Synagogue of Kovno, were both born in Dusiat.
