“I am writing today to apologize publicly for harm caused to anyone because of my inserting myself into the descriptions of life in Auschwitz,” Joseph Hirt, 86, wrote in a letter sent to his local paper, LNP, this week. “I was not a prisoner there ...

For years, Hirt gave public speeches about his experiences ... he also told people that he was arrested by the Nazis, sent to the concentration camp at Auschwitz, and met Mengele ... claimed to have escaped under an electric fence at the camp.

He added an extraordinary prologue and epilogue to the story, saying that he saw Adolf Hitler turn his back on Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and that he met Eleanor Roosevelt and Owens after his arrival in the United States.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/24/holocaust-survivor-lied-joseph-hirt-auschwitz

And he isn't the only one.