He was born in the 8th arrondissement of Paris to Suzanne Lang and Dr. Léon Zadoc-Kahn, Chief Medical Officer of the :fr:Hôpital Rothschild|Rothschild Hospital in Paris and president of the central committee of Keren haYesod France. His grandfather was Zadoc Kahn, the chief rabbi of France. He had a sister, Jacqueline Zadoc-Kahn Eisenmann and a brother, Jean Zadoc-Kahn. He became an intern at Paris hospitals in 1926. Around this time, he and his family had professional, educational and social connexions with well-known and to-be-famous people, such as physicists Paul Langevin and Satyendra Nath Bose, the latter who was on a two-year visit to Europe see photo , socialite Philippe de Rothschild, racing driver :fr:Guy Bouriat, industrialist and racing driver André Dubonnet and film maker :fr:Pierre Schwab. Zadoc-Kahn completed his doctoral thesis in 1931. When World War II began, he was an established cardiologist and the chief doctor of the American Hospital of Paris, the focus of which had changed because of the war. His sister volunteered to work in an air ministry laboratory. When the French forces were defeated by Nazi Germany in 1940, Zadoc-Kahn was in such despair that he took his own life by shooting himself. It was reported that he was being lined up to take over his father's role at the :fr:Hôpital Rothschild in Paris. In a note to his father, he said that he was unable to accept the disastrous situation for France which he'd experienced as an army physician. Eugene Meyer, the U.S. financier and a second-cousin to him, had offered sanctuary to his father; however, the Zadoc-Kahns were so devastated by their son's death that they declined: they went into hiding in France, as did their daughter and her family. His parents were discovered three years later by gendarmes and sent to their deaths at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943. His sister survived the war. Zadoc-Kahn and his father are listed amongst the victims of World War II by the Amicale des Anciens Internes des Hôpitaux de Paris.
Published papers
Les Anomalies électro-cardiographiques au cours de la diphtérie, signification clinique et valeur pronostique ; les Presses universitaires de France, Thèses de médecine. Paris. 1931. N° 526
Astrocytome kystique du cervelet, ablation de la tumeur murale, guérison par M. Clovis Vincent, Mlle Fanny Rappoport, M. Bertrand Zadoc-Kahn; Cystic ; Revue neurologiqueJanuary 1932, société française d'imprimerie, Poitiers, 1932
Valeur pratique de l'électro-cardiographie au cours de la diphtérie ; E. Lesné et B. Zadoc-Kahn; "Revue française de pédiatrie" Vol. 9, N° 4, Gaston Doin et Cie, editors, Paris, 1933
