Pope John Paul's first visit to the Orthodox Serb part of Bosnia today stirred painful memories of wrongs Serbs suffered at the hands of Croat Catholic occupiers during World War Two.
The site chosen for his open-air mass was a Franciscan monastery rebuilt after being destroyed by Serb paramilitaries during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
In World War Two the monastery was home to an extremist Franciscan friar, Tomislav Filipovic Majstorovic. Serb historians say he blessed Nazi-allied Croat Ustashe forces responsible for killing more than 2,000 Serb civilians in 1942.
Filipovic was excommunicated from the church and his order apologised for crimes he committed. The pope, preaching reconciliation to Bosnia's Muslims, Serbs and Croats, was also expected to ask forgiveness for the wrongs of the past.
But ancestors of victims killed in the area of the village of Drakulici say his mass should not have been located at the monastery in Petricevac.
"It is a creepy fact that the pope holds a mass at Petricevac," said Mr Jovan Babic, who has investigated the massacre in which dozens of children were also killed.
"If he knew what are the links between Petricevac and the massacre, he would have never held the mass there," Mr Babic added.
Mr Nedjeljko Glamocanin, whose entire family was killed in the Ustashe onslaught, said the pope was not welcome in Banja Luka until he apologised for the crime.
"We do not intend to disrupt the pope's visit or cause trouble," Mr Glamocanin said.
But Bosnian authorities were taking no chances. Two days before the pope's visit several known Serb hardliners were taken into detention suspected of posing a threat to the ailing 83-year-old pontiff. They were later released.
Today shortly before his arrival, traffic was held up for two hours while police checked a suspect car abandoned on the route to the airport from the city of Banja Luka. It was found to be harmless.
Some 4,000 police backed by troops of the NATO-led peacekeeping force were providing security for the pope's one-day visit. Posters saying "Pope Go Home" appeared briefly in the city but were removed.
Two years ago, one man died when Serb nationalists attacked a crowd celebrating the reconstruction of a mosque in Banja Luka.
A Reuters reporter said Banja Luka was very quiet as the pope's visit began, with cafes empty and the public sale of alcohol banned for the day.