Gërvalla-Schwarz was born in Skopje – present-day North Macedonia – to a ethnic Albanian family. Her father was activist Jusuf Gërvalla, who advocated for Albanian nationalism and Marxism–Leninism. Gërvalla-Schwarz was raised in Pristina, but fled with her family to West Germany in 1980, due to political persecution faced by her father at the hands of the Yugoslav secret police. In 1982, her father was assassinated in Untergruppenbach, and the family subsequently fled to Tirana shortly afterwards.
