The shop on Decatur Street has many of the same tchotchkes you’d find in other French Quarter curiosity shops and antiques showrooms: old coins, historic maps, Mardi Gras masks and fancy lamps.

But not far from the door, in a glass display case and behind the main counter, are a Nazi flag and a statue of a hooded Ku Klux Klansman. The shop also features dozens of Jim Crow-era items with racist caricatures of black people.

Or at least it did. On Thursday, Rare Finds owner Sue Saucier agreed to remove the items from sale at the request of the leader of a Jewish civil rights group who visited the store this week and was appalled by what he saw on the shelves.

Aaron Ahlquist, the director of the Anti-Defamation League’s South Central Region chapter, said in a statement Thursday that the offensive merchandise was “not the image that New Orleans wants to convey to the millions of visitors each year, nor to our own citizens.”

“It is deeply troubling that items so clearly associated with hateful ideologies are so prominently displayed for sale in the French Quarter,” Ahlquist said. “We cannot allow for hate to become normalized, and that certainly includes profiting from the symbols of hate.”

When a reporter first asked her to comment on Ahlquist’s request, Saucier said she would consult with her attorney. But she defended selling merchandise such as a $1,695 Nazi flag and a $1,295 statuette of a white-hooded Klansman.

“The items in my store are historical items. We don’t mean to offend anyone when we sell these things,” Saucier said in a telephone call Thursday afternoon. “They represent history. They do not represent my sentiments.”

She then said people offended by the merchandise could choose not to visit her store — or better yet, buy the items and burn them.

“You can quote me on that,” Saucier said. “Do what you want with (them). I don’t care.”

A few minutes later, however, she called back and pledged to remove the items that triggered Ahlquist’s request.

“I’ve consulted with my attorney, and at this time, we have done some reflection on the issue, and we are going to remove the items from the store,” she said. “They will not be for sale.”

Reviews left on the online business directory Yelp suggest Rare Finds for years has been selling items associated with Nazi Germany — which murdered 6 million Jews during the Holocaust in the 1940s — and the Ku Klux Klan, which during and after Reconstruction targeted blacks and other U.S. minority groups with often-deadly violence.

But the store did not land on Ahlquist’s radar until recently. An out-of-towner visiting New Orleans — a majority-black city — went to Rare Finds, was disturbed by the anti-Semitic and racist offerings, and told a friend. The friend then helped get word to the Anti-Defamation League.

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As recently as Wednesday, one of the first items Rare Finds visitors encountered upon entering was a statue of a chimpanzee standing on two legs and dressed like a jockey. It held a handwritten sign reading: “1950’s 27-inch tall black Americana cement lawn jockey. $495. Hard to find.”

Another display case contained a “mammy jar” — depicting a racist stereotype of a black nursemaid — next to what a sign described as “1800s iron adult slave shackles.”

A large Nazi flag was displayed behind the main counter, and there was a matching lighter in a nearby case.

The 10-inch-tall, hooded Klansman statuette stood in a display case toward the front of the store, behind a sign saying it was once placed in front of buildings where the hate group was meeting.

While items with racist imagery were prominently featured, they made up a relatively small portion of the store's inventory. Its jumbled shelves are laden with all manner of other curiosities, such as a book commemorating the New Orleans Saints’ 25th-anniversary season in 1991, part of a broader section full of team memorabilia in a back corner.

Historian Lawrence Powell — who taught at Tulane University for 34 years before retiring in 2012 — said he did not find merit in Rare Finds’ claim that its more inflammatory items held historical value.

The signs advertising the items made no mention of the atrocities carried out by Nazis, Klansmen or slave owners. Powell said true historical institutions, such as museums and libraries, provide relevant context.

“She has the right to display it and sell it — that’s the freedom of commerce,” Powell said. “But I think it represents terrible judgment, and racial and ethnic insensitivity, and maybe worse.”

Saucier initially shrugged off such criticism.

“You can’t please everyone in this world — it’s a little too (politically correct) today,” said Saucier, who registered her antiques business with the state in 2000. “We’re not trying to offend anyone by having this merchandise. But this is America. You can have freedom of speech, and freedom of thought.”

A half hour later, she called back and said, “We will remove the items from the store.”

She said she planned to do that Friday.