MANCIANO, Italy  Commemorating the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday recalled the “tragedy of the Holocaust” and the deaths of “tens of millions” in the conflict.

Speaking at an outdoor Mass on Sunday in Viterbo, north of Rome, Benedict said: “We cannot forget the major events that took place during one of the most terrible conflicts in history, that left tens of millions dead and provoked so much suffering for our beloved Polish people,” he said. “It was conflict that saw the tragedy of the Holocaust and the extermination of so many other innocents.”

Just days after Poland held ceremonies marking the German invasion across its border that started the war, Benedict singled out the war’s Polish victims, but he did not specifically mention the Jewish victims other than to broadly refer to the Holocaust.

Benedict, an 83-year-old German, witnessed the Second World War firsthand, describing himself as an unwilling enlistee in the Hitler Youth and later the army. He has decried totalitarianism and anti-Semitism many times over the years. But as pope he has been criticized by Jewish groups as being insensitive at times.