Letter from Hershel Shapiro to United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

I am a 53 year old child of survivors. My parents are no longer alive.

I want to research the Bad Arolson files to determine the history/fate of my father's (Izrael Szapira/Irving Shapiro's) younger brother who I've recently learned (through the American Red Cross) was liberated from Buchenwald at the age of 19 or 20, and taken to a hospital in a nearby town called Blankenhain (sp?), where he died a few weeks later and was buried in the town cemetary along with other prisoners who survived but died days later.

My uncle's name was Abraham Shapiro (Americanized version). I believe the Polish spelling was something more like Abraham Szapiro (or maybe Avrahim or whatever a boy referred to by my father as Abraham would be called in Poland or Germany). By the way, my father and his brother Abraham (and mother and father [Malke and Hershel/Tvi?] who we know were taken to Treblinka where they were most likely exterminated) were all from a Polish town of about 20,000 people called Meidzryec (or something close to that), which town was about 40-60 kilometers east of Warsaw.

My father's and his brother's parents were Hershel (Americanized) and Malke Szapira/Szapiro/Shapiro.

HERE'S MY QUESTION FOR YOU. HOW DOES ONE START AND FOLLOW THROUGH WITH RESEARCHING?

I'VE SPENT TIME ON THE WEBSITE AND ALTHOUGH IT CONTAINED MANY LINKS, I FOUND NOTHING THAT EXPLAINED OR GAVE A STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTION ON WHAT TO DO IF YOU'RE TRYING TO RESEARCH SOMEONE.

P.S. FYI my father (Irving Shapiro/Szapira) spent time in Madjanek, Buna, and Birkenau. My understanding is that shortly before the end of the war, he was rounded up with other prisoners in Birkenau and taken on a forced march where he was placed on a ship (the Carpathia?) which the Germans sent into the water and blew up. He was one of the few survivors who was plucked from the waters (I think by the British) and taken to a Displaced Persons camp on the coast of northern Germany called Neustadt Holstein (sp?)

AGAIN, HOW DO GO ABOUT RESEARCHING SOMEONE LIKE MY UNCLE, WHO MY FATHER REFERRED TO GROWING UP AS ABRAHAM?

Again, I know that he [Abraham] was originally in rhe concentration camp called Madjanek; then taken to Buchenwald in or about 1942, -43 where he was one of the few survivors left when the British arrived in 1945; then liberated and taken to a nearby hospital in Blankenhain, Germany where he died a few weeks later (on or about May 22, 1945.

HOW DO YOU SUGGEST I GO ABOUT MAKING USED OF THE BAD AROLSON ARCHIVES IN ORDER TO RESEARCH MY UNCLE ABRAHAM SZAPIRA, AND THEN THE REST OF MY FAMILY?