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Thanks to Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List," millions of people learned — or were reminded — that there were people during World War II who risked their lives to save Jews.

In that dark chapter in human history there was perhaps no greater example of the altruistic personality than Raoul Wallenberg.

But unlike other cases, the end to the well-known story of the Swedish diplomat still remains a mystery.

University of Chicago biochemistry professor Marvin Makinen doesn't dwell on why Wallenberg was arrested by Soviet authorities on Jan. 17, 1945, nor on the details of what he had done before that.

He knows that during the latter half of 1944 the 31-year-old Wallenberg, while in Budapest, managed to save as many as 100,000 or more Hungarian Jews from death at the hands of the Nazis.

But what he, and most of the world, doesn't know is what happened to Wallenberg once he was taken into Soviet custody in 1945.

In search of an answer to that question, he — and other volunteers — set off recently with an investigative team of five others for Vladimir prison, northeast of Moscow, where Wallenberg is said to have been jailed.

"I would agree that the chances are clearly diminishing that Wallenberg would be alive anymore," he said before leaving for Russia.

Yet he insists "there is no evidence at all" to support the Soviet claim that Wallenberg died of a heart attack in July 1947 at Lubyanka prison.

"Someone's covering something," he says.

Makinen is a member of a Swedish and Russian group that meets a few times a year to analyze information about Wallenberg's fate. The current trip came after an unexpected Russian invitation.

Determined to learn of Wallenberg's fate while at the prison, the Makinen team is hoping to examine more than 100,000 temporarily declassified documents and interview prison workers and former inmates.

One strategy the team is adopting is to determine the occupancy history of each cell in the Vladimir prison in order to locate the Wallenberg cell through a process of elimination.

Then team members will attempt to find former prisoners from adjoining cells who might be able to shed light on the Swedish diplomat's incarceration there.

Makinen, 57, who was born in Michigan and is not Jewish, says his determination to solve the Wallenberg mystery dates to a 1980 request for assistance on the matter from Guy von Dardel, Wallenberg's half-brother.

In fact, the approach did not come out of the blue. Makinen himself had once been an inmate at Vladimir prison.

The University of Chicago biochemist does not like to talk about that episode in his life, but he recalls some of the details. In 1961, while an exchange student from the University of Pennsylvania at the Free University of Berlin, he was arrested by Soviet authorities and charged with espionage.

Following a closed trial, he was given an eight-year sentence but was released in 1963. He has been with the University of Chicago since 1974.

During Makinen's incarceration, part of which was spent at Vladimir prison, the main political isolation prison in the Soviet Union at the time, an inmate told him that he had been the cellmate of a Swedish man named "Vandenberg."

There is other evidence not only that Wallenberg did not die as reported by the authorities, but that he may have been alive as late as 1989.

Not long ago a cleaning woman was located who had worked at the Vladimir prison since 1945, and who identified Wallenberg as an inmate there. Such evidence spurs Makinen to continue his work, which is facing difficulties because of lack of funding.

He says that the many foundations which he has approached — including Spielberg's — have not been forthcoming with grants.

"They say it's highly unlikely anything will come of this project," he notes.

The Raoul Wallenberg Committee based in New York has been the main source of research money, he adds.

Yet Makinen remains focused on, and confident about, his goal, and optimistic.

"I think eventually we'll find out what's happened," he says.

"Lots of records have been destroyed, but we believe there will be enough of a paper trail left to determine what occurred."