ROME -Pope Francis marked Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday by warning that warped ideologies can pave the way to another genocide.

Francis spoke off the cuff at the end of his weekly general audience, held in his private library because of coronavirus restrictions, to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, where Nazis killed more than 1 million Jews and others.

In all, Nazi groups and their collaborators killed about 6 million European Jews, 1,500 Jehovah's Witnesses, up to 250,000 individuals of Roma and Sinti descent, and nearly 250,000 Germans with mental and physical disabilities. This was in addition to countless executions of gay men, captured Soviet soldiers, and individuals of Polish descent.

The Argentine pope insisted on the need to remember, saying it was a sign of humanity and a condition for a peaceful future. But he said remembering “also means to be aware that these things can happen again, starting with ideological proposals that claim to save a people and end up destroying a people and humanity.”

He warned that the Holocaust began that way, opening “this path of death, extermination and brutality.”

Francis prayed at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial during his 2016 visit to Poland.