While in the Mir, Wolbe befriended a young man from Stockholm, Sweden, Bert Lehmann, son of Hans (Chaim) and Fannie Lehmann. During World War II, Wolbe, who was a German national, was in danger of deportation and could not follow the Mir yeshiva into Russia. Hans Lehmann invited Wolbe to stay with his family and be the Jewish teacher for his sons. Wolbe thus was able to spend the war years in neutral Sweden. While he was in Sweden, he functioned there as a rabbi. During the war he worked for the US-based Rescue Committee in coordination with Rabbi Benjamin Jakobson. At the end of the war he created a girls school for refugees in Lidingö. There, he wrote pamphlets on Judaism in Swedish and German.