Bernhard Zondek

Bernhard Zondek was born in 1891 in Poznań

Zondek was born in 1891 in Wronke, in the Posen province of the German Empire, to Abraham and Sarah Zondek. Like his brothers Hermann and Georg, he studied medicine in Berlin. His studies began in 1911 and were interrupted by World War I, when he worked at a military hospital.

He qualified as a physician in 1919 and joined the gynecology department of the Charité hospital in Berlin under Karl Franz. He became a lecturer in 1923 and an associate professor in 1926. In 1929 he was named head of obstetrics and gynecology at a municipal hospital in Berlin.

After the Nazis took power in 1933, he was dismissed because he was Jewish. He moved to Stockholm and worked at the university's Biochemical Institute, but more than 1,000 Swedish physicians signed a petition against him. He decided to leave Sweden.

In late 1934 he immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. He became professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and head of the department at Hadassah Hospital. His research covered estrogen, pituitary hormones and the placenta, and he received the Israel Prize in medicine in 1958.

He retired from teaching and patient care in 1961 and devoted himself to research. He died in New York on 8 November 1966. Streets in Jerusalem and Beersheba are named after the Zondek brothers.