Henryk Batuta hoax

The perpetrators of the hoax created an article about Henryk Batuta (supposedly born Izaak Apfelbaum), a fictional socialist revolutionary and Polish Communist.

The anonymous hoaxers who created the article, according to the press calling themselves "The Batuta Army" (Polish: Armia Batuty), allegedly wanted to draw attention to the fact that there are still places in Poland named after former communist officials who "do not deserve the honour".

The mystification was "officially" exposed and confirmed on 9 February 2006, when the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza[4] and weekly Przekrój[5] published their articles about the hoax.

The following is an English translation of the hoax article as it appeared on the Polish Wikipedia on 1 February 2006, when it was exposed as a hoax:[8] Henryk Batuta, real name Izaak Apfelbaum, (born 1898 in Odesa – died 1947 near Ustrzyki Górne) was a Polish communist and an activist in the international workers' movement.

Enforcing party sentences, he organised assassinations of undercover political police informers; the killings were carried out by Wacław Komar, among others.