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Many of us know Raoul Wallenberg. He was the diplomat who managed to save the lives of almost 15,000 Hungarian Jews by giving them Swedish passports. This helped them to reach the border and to keep them out of harm’s way from the Nazis who wished to kill them. Yet, even with all of the help that he gave it did not seem that there was anyone to help him. January 17th, 1945 Soviet troops liberated Budapest and in the process they captured Wallenberg.

That was the last time that Wallenberg was seen. It wasn’t until 1947 that Moscow reported that Wallenberg had died in Lubyanka Prison. But could it have been possible that he lived longer than this in secrecy?

It has been close to 63 years since his arrest and the Wallenberg family as well as researchers from many generations have thought that the Swedish diplomat might have survived many years after when the Soviets said he died. They believe that he could have been a prisoner in the Soviet gulag system.

“There are plenty of indications that he may have survived past 1947, and these deserve thorough examination,” says Susanne Berger, a German-born researcher who has spent 15 years exploring Wallenberg’s fate.

But what motives would the Soviets have to imprison Wallenberg and why would they lie about his death? Researchers believe that the Soviets could have gotten wind of the work that Wallenberg was doing and discovered that he was a spy for the West.

“There were few if any neutral businessmen traveling about Europe [in 1944] who did not have some contact or other with some intelligence service, and probably with several,” says historian C.G. McKay. And, he says, Wallenberg was no exception.

Wallenberg was hired by Olsen Ivers a member of Budapest’s Jews by War Refugee Board to rescue the Jews. Ivers was also head of the Stockholm station of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Swedish Security Police, according to McKay, have wiretap records of a cryptic 1943 phone conversation between Wallenberg and British national Cyril Chesire, who headed both the British Passport Office and the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in Stockholm.

While in Budapest, Wallenberg also had well-documented contact with individuals linked to British intelligence although American Wallenberg researcher Susan Mesinai suggests he was not necessarily aware of their espionage work. And others have suggested he may have had links with another U.S. wartime intel operation known as the ‘Pond’, and that there are still unanswered questions about Wallenberg’s relationship with Swedish intelligence.

“Raoul Wallenberg was attempting to use the OSS and almost anyone else to help him help people escape,” argues Chris Simpson, a Professor at American University in Washington. “Meanwhile the OSS was attempting to use Wallenberg as a source of intelligence.”

Researchers believe that the only true way to see what happened to Wallenberg is to look at his prison file. However, no one has been successful at getting their hands on this priceless document. They have also been unable to access other personal records of prisoners or officials who could have come into contact with him.
The report issued by the Swedish-Russian Working Group in 2000 listed 17 questions that need to be addressed by the Russian government before Wallenberg’s fate can be determined. In the eight years since, not a single question has been answered.

“I don’t buy that they [the Russians] don’t know,” says researcher Susan Mesinai. “I do buy that they have a complexity of reasons for not producing the files” that would solve the mystery. According to Marvin Makinen, a University of Chicago Professor who was a member of the Swedish-Russian Working Group, the Russians could be holding back because the truth about Wallenberg may still be dangerous.

“One reason [for keeping this secret] is that there is someone alive who was part of the Soviet government who participated in the decisions about Wallenberg, and would be held accountable if the truth got out,” Makinen told TIME. He can think of few other reasons why the Russians are unwilling to cooperate in resolving the issue - particularly if it believes the official Soviet account of Wallenberg’s death is the truth.

Researchers blame Sweden for the disappearance of Wallenberg because they did not push Moscow to release information and to resolve the issue themselves.

“We know for sure that there is plenty of important documentation in Russian archives we have not seen at all,” says Berger. “And, for whatever reasons, Sweden is not pushing very hard to get access to it.”

Many have wondered why researchers are still trying to uncover a mystery that they have been unsuccessful at for many years.

“It’s a question of principle,” says Berger. “Millions of people suffered and died in Soviet captivity. Raoul Wallenberg is symbolic of all these people. It’s like Wallenberg’s brother once said: ‘Yes, millions died, but I want to know about this one.’”