1907

28 XII – Roman Antoni Palester is born in Śniatyń.

I was born in a place and a world which does not exist anymore. Perphaps it never did? And if it did exist, it was such a long time ago! When it comes to the date, I have to admit that to be born on the Feast of Holy Innocents was the ultimate faux pas: it spoilt the entire Christmas holday…

1908

But I did not stay long in this Śniatyń. My father was a young district doctor at the time and the administration would move him from one district to another. So after a while he landed somewhere else, in Brzeżany, I think, and then in Sambor.

1909

The Palesters move to Turka. The young Roman would spent winters in Zakopane, together with his mother who was treated there for tuberculosis.

However, my first childhood memories, first conscious records of visual memory – for, after all, the eyes have the best and the longest memory – are associated with another town: Turka on the river Stryj, which was situated deep in the mountains on the route from Lviv to Uzocka Pass. In other words – an area where the gentle shapes of the Bieszczady Mountains gradually begin to acquire more fantastic and wild forms – not the Gorgany Range yet but a kind of entrance to it.