In its current location for four years now, St. Petersburg's Florida Holocaust Museum continues its mission of Holocaust remembrance through education and exhibitions.

Answering those who deny history, artifacts and eyewitness accounts have been the constant defense. That, however, is now complicated by the ease of digitally altered imagery. Even Hitler's Holocaust has had its legitimacy questioned.

Countering this abhorrent revisionism, the museum has on display the actual train tracks leading into Treblinka and a Polish boxcar used to carry Jews to death camps. Set on the ground floor, both are grisly symbols with a claustrophobic presence that's absolutely gripping.

The upstairs galleries are devoted to art, always Judaically themed, but not necessarily Holocaust-related. Two current photography exhibitions are decidedly Holocaust-oriented, though. Spilling across three-quarters of the gallery areas are approximately 150 photos. All are eyewitness accounts, disparate in process, style and consequence, separated by the vicissitudes of time.

In Reflections Without a Voice, Tampa photographer/artist Marlyn Cheshes is showing 28 small photographs, many of deserted Nazi concentration camps. Her narrative begins with the ghetto experience and ends with the inherent optimism of a child running freely in nature.

Though the exhibition is a bit uneven in impact, Cheshes displays promising strengths. One is her self-editing, minimalist, almost quiet, sensibility. Another is her occasional use of a compelling darkened palette. In "End of the Line Birkenau," taken in 1999 when she visited the camps, dark tones lend the uncanny look of historical photographs, which are enhanced by the absence of the human figure. In "Mengele's Laboratory," a stark table quietly screams at the viewer.

Also strong is "Lost Luggage," where known Holocaust objects are rendered in a formally constructed composition. It's nearly a companion piece to the grayed human bones that remain a Holocaust reality.

Two suggestions: Black framing (rather than the light color) and limiting her penchant for words (some her own, and others taken from writers like Primo Levi) would greatly enhance her subject matter. However well chosen and meaningful, the words are excessively expressed, made especially obvious by her pencil text sprawled over the lower mat margin. They overpower and detract from the photos. Words repeated in the wall text are sufficient to make the point.

Also showing is Fragments: Portraits of Survivors, in many respects an astonishing collection of black-and-white photos with actual survivor text below. In this instance, words culled from the photographer's personal interviews with each subject form a perfect correspondence to the lined faces above. Indeed, they emphasize Elie Wiesel's plea for the Holocaust survivor's "authenticity." Their testimony runs a wide gamut: gratitude for survival; the triumph of life continuing into a new century; poignant remembrance; refusal to hate. A poised Marie Silverman needs only three little words; "I defeated Hitler." One woman declares herself the only survivor in her family, with 50 relatives murdered.

We meet elegant men and women and learn of their torturous pain and passion, many just children during World War II. I was stunned to see in these photos several people I know in Tampa.

Young Canadian photographer Jason Schwartz endows an extra strength for his subjects, posing them in strong classical compositions. In many pieces, he applies an almost uniform touch of bright white or nearly mystical penetrating light.

Keep in mind that past exhibitions here featured artists as diverse as Abraham Rattner, Samuel Bak and Judy Chicago. I strongly urge you to add the Florida Holocaust Museum to your list of art destinations.

Adrienne M. Golub can be reached by e-mail at adrienne.golub@weeklyplanet.com.

This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2002.