Bertha Schwarz was born in 1907. Her father was Jewish, her mother was Christian and she herself was Protestant. She graduated from high school in Frankfurt in 1927. Her father died around the time she started school, and her mother died in the early 1920s. As a teenager, Bertha Schwarz was left to her own devices. Through scholarships and work, she financed her studies in German and modern philology in Frankfurt (1927-1932) and obtained a doctorate. When her professor moved to Bonn, he took her on as his assistant. She lived in a small attic room in Weberstraße in Südstadt. From 1933, the situation became increasingly difficult for Schwarz as a "half-breed of the first degree". She was soon banned from publishing academic articles and had to support herself by typing and taking private lessons, working as a cleaner, sales clerk or domestic help. Her older sister took her own life in 1933.

She was particularly shocked by the November pogroms. One pupil recalled that she was upset but refused to stop the lesson. Once she received an anonymous tip not to go home in the evening. The next day she found out that the Gestapo had rung the doorbell. Later, even restaurants were banned for Schwarz. Only once did a student on war leave in Bonn secretly take her with him in his uniform. Between 1942 and 1944, she was once again a professor's secretary - the Bonn employment office determined that no one else could be placed. From September 1944, she had to do forced labor in an armaments factory. She was also used to organize libraries. When Bonn was bombed on October 18, 1944, she lost her apartment and all her possessions. She herself was "evacuated" with the company in January 1945 and was sent to Landsberg an der Warthe in what is now Poland.

After liberation by the Red Army, Bertha Schwarz reached Berlin. There she became a head teacher in Berlin-Pankow in the Soviet zone. Because she did not join the Communist Party, she was unable to stay and returned to Bonn in 1946. She found a new purpose in life at " Die Brücke" and later became part of the management team. While trying to rescue books from her former, bombed-out apartment, the floor gave way and Bertha Schwarz fell one floor. She broke her back in the fall, but because she had read an article, she was able to help the first aiders. Nevertheless, she spent years in hospital in "agony" and had to relearn how to walk. She remained disabled, was given special boots and was limited by an eye condition. Nevertheless, she taught diploma children at the Beethoven Gymnasium and gave private tuition. Dr. Bertha Schwarz died in a nursing home in Bonn in 1996.