Simone Duvalier imperious bearing, Haitians referred to her as "Mama Doc". She was, like her husband, reported to be a Vodou expert. She cultivated the image of a benefactor; dispensing charity to inhabitants of "Cite Simone", a planned settlement named for her that is known today as Cité Soleil, one of the most miserable slums in Latin America. Simone Duvalier's influence reached its peak after the death of her husband on 21 April 1971, when her nineteen-year-old son Jean-Claude Duvalier succeeded his father as Haiti's "President for Life". Simone Duvalier retained the title of First Lady, and relished the power it conferred.
Jean-Claude Pressac at Auschwitz : design, construction, use, modifications, and destruction of the crematoria and gas chambers" which was published in 1993. Reporting from France for The New York Times, Roger Cohen wrote on 28 October 1993: The book written by Pressac was a subject of Ron Rosenbaum's interview with Claude Lanzmann in Paris, conducted for his own book "Explaining Hitler". Rosenbaum noted how much the 1985 release of the Lanzmann's controversial Shoah (film) "had raised him to the vatic, prophetic heights" from which he hurled criticism at others. Pressac was no exception. Lanzmann said: Jean-Claude Pressac Jean-Claude Pressac ( 1944 –