Brazil's Brightest Jewels.

• Author: Luxner, Larry
• Position: Brief Article

IN 1939, ON THE EVE of World War II, a penniless German Jew named Hans Stern arrived in Brazil with his parents, and with no clue as to how he'd make a living. Six years later, as the war was winding down, the enterprising refugee inaugurated a jewelry business with $200 in savings.

Today, H. Stern Comercio e Industria S.A. is Latin America's leading jewelry conglomerate, with 180 stores in luxury hotels, shopping malls, and airports from Belo Horizonte to Bogota. Hardly a five-star property opens in some Latin American capital, it seems, without the obligatory H. Stern outlet and its glittering display of watches, necklaces, rings, and bracelets in the hotel lobby.

It's been a long road from Essen to Ipanema, the upscale Rio de Janeiro suburb where Stern's showroom is visited by thousands of tourists a month. Many of them would undoubtedly be surprised to learn how, over the course of a half-century, Stern became one of Brazil's most successful businessmen.

"First I worked as a broker, going to the hinterlands, getting stones on consignment," Stern says. "I ended up making some jewelry for friends, then customers. At that time, the export business was all in the hands of non-Jewish Poles. This is when I learned my only sentence in Polish, which translates as 'we don't need any calibrated aquamarines.'"

The young jeweler's big break came in 1951, when he received an order from Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza for a $20,000 aquamarine necklace. The business continued growing, and in 1956, Rio de Janeiro's fathers granted him the title of "honorary citizen."

Over the years, H. Stern has introduced efficient and permanent research for raw materials, utilizing items of various origins and a variety of precious metals, from gold to platinum. The most popular Brazilian gemstone is the aquamarine, which is mined in the state of Minas Gerais, Espirito Santo, and Bahia. Emeralds, meanwhile, are found in the states of Goias and Bahia, while the rare imperial...