a, a retiree who began working as an orderly at Moscow's Vladimir Prison in 1946. She remembered a foreigner in solitary confinement on the third floor of Korpus 2, a building used as a hospital and isolation ward. Though decades had passed, the prisoner stood out in Larina's memory. He spoke Russian with an accent and repeatedly griped that the soup was cold when Larina delivered it, she said. Prison authorities ordered her to serve him first.
"This is very unusual," Makinen said in an interview. Normally, such complaints would condemn an inmate to a punishment cell. "The fact that he wasn't means he was a very special prisoner."
When shown a gallery of photographs, Larina immediately picked out Wallenberg's -- one never published, Makinen said.
Larina recalled the man was in an opposite cell when another prisoner, Kirill Osmak, died in May 1960.
Makinen and colleague Ari Kaplan created a database of cell occupancy from the prison's registration cards and found two cells opposite Osmak's that were reported empty for 243 and 717 days, respectively. Normally, cells were left vacant for a week at most, Makinen said. The researchers concluded the two cells likely held special prisoners, namelessly concealed in the gulag.
Mesinai and others reviewed hundreds of accounts over the decades from people who claimed to have seen or heard of someone who could have been Wallenberg. They established a pattern of sightings from the reports, many unreliable, others uncorroborated, but some with a tantalizing ring of truth.
One compelling account came in 1961. Swedish physician Nanna Svartz asked a Russian scientist about Wallenberg during a medical conference in Moscow. Lowering his voice, the Russian told her Wallenberg was at a psychiatric hospital and "not in very good shape."
The Russian, Alexandr Myasnikov, later claimed he had been misunderstood, but Svartz stood firm. "He went pale as soon as he said it, and appeared to understand that he had said too much," she reported.
If Wallenberg was alive after 1947, the question remains: Why was he never freed?
The 2001 Swedish report speculated that the longer he was held, the harder it was for the Soviets to release him. "It might have appeared simpler to keep him in isolation."
Researchers continue to probe for Wallenberg's fate in Russia, and historians are awaiting the release of the Pond papers.
Whatever any of this reveals, a 1979 U.S. State Department memo put the questions into perspective: "Whether or not Wallenberg was involved in espionage during World War II is a moot point at this stage in history. His obvious humanitarian acts certainly outweigh any conceivable 'spy' mission he may have been on."
