In 2007, Laura Grosman, an 18-year-old university student in Ottawa learned that Canada was the only Allied nation that didn’t have a monument to victims of the Holocaust.

The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, Grosman was incensed and began lobbying politicians. It was perplexing that Canada—a country that had played an integral role on the beaches of Normandy in 1944 and helped to end World War II—had no permanent marker for the civilian victims of that war.

Ten years later, Canada’s Nationa…