 In 1939 , Pius XII turned the Vatican into a centre of aid which he organized from various parts of the world . At the request of the Pope , an information office for prisoners of war and refugees operated in the Vatican under Giovanni Battista Montini , which in the years of its existence from 1939 until 1947 received almost 10 million ( 9 @,@ 891 @,@ 497 ) information requests and produced over 11 million ( 11 @,@ 293 @,@ 511 ) answers about missing persons . 
